"Bennett, Cherie - Sunset Island 001 - Sunset Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Cherie)

Sunset 1 -- Sunset IslandOne Emma stood at the doorway of the ballroom at the
Marriott hotel in New York City, underneath the huge banner that read
INTERNATIONAL AU PAIR CONVENTION. She looked around uncertainly at the throngs
of people milling through the ballroom, searching for a friendly face.
Eighteen-year-olds from all over the world had come to this convention, in the
hopes of being hired as au pairs. Some were just looking for a great summer job
before college. Some hoped to be hired for an entire year. But all of them were
counting on landing a job in some choice location.
Emma had to smile, thinking about it. Six months ago she hadn't even known what
an au pair was. Then the Powells, friends of her parents, hired an
eighteen-year-old French girl through the International Au Pair Society to care
for their children for a year. Monique lived in their home and sort of became a
part of their family. In addition to room and board, she also received a small
salary. The more Emma thought about it, the more she thought that this would be
the perfect summer job for her.
Not that her parents agreed, of course. In fact, they had been horrified. Why on
earth should Emma work at all? It wasn't as if she needed the money, they added
reasonably. But how could Emma explain to her extremely rich, extremely
self-satisfied parents that she didn't want the job for the money? She wanted it
to get away from her extremely rich, extremely self-satisfied parents.
Sometimes Emma thought she would suffocate, just drown within the narrow
confines of her parents' life-style. It often seemed that every minute of her
life had been prearranged, from the right Swiss boarding schools to the right
Waspy, old-money friends. In the fall, her parents expected Emma to go to
Ballantrae College, which in her opinion was an elitist, all-women finishing
school. It was also the college that her mother and her mother's mother had
attended. Emma would concentrate on French, an "appropriate" major for a rich
girl. But really, Emma didn't want to go to Ballantrae. She didni, want to study
French. And she didn't want to go along with all the "shoulds" that had been
dictated to her all of her life.
The plan had formed slowly in her mind, gathering steam over the last few
months. She would go to the International Au Pair Convention in New York in
April. She knew she could stay at her Aunt Liz's loft in SoHo during the
convention. She'd go through the training and the lectures and the interviews,
and at the end of the convention she'd be hired as an au pair for some nice
family at some fabulous location. Someplace where no one knew she was a
Cresswell of the Boston Cresswells. Someplace where she could be just like
everyone else.
"Emma! Emma! Over here!" Emma was startled back to the present. She looked
through the crowd in the direction of the voice that was calling her. Over the
tops of the heads of a couple of hundred girls and a handful of guys, Emma spied
the wild red curls and waving arms of Samantha Bridges. Emma had sat next to Sam
at the very first lecture of the convention two days earlier, and they had
gotten to be friends. Sam had made the getting-to-know-each-other process easy.
She was like that-and unlike anyone else Emma had ever known. Emma waved back
gratefully and made her way toward Sam.
"Here, have some coffee," Sam said, handing Emma a paper cup from the long
buffet table set up behind her. "What a scene, huh?" "Unbelievable," Emma
agreed, as someone bumped her from behind to get to the breakfast buffet.
Sam helped steady Emma and caught a good look at Emma's outfit.