Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 1(104)

“Rick said that it was mostly number theory and combinatorics last year,” Quentin said, his arm draped over the back of his seat. “Starts easy, gets hard. Super hard. And the guy running it is a hardass. Kicked one person out last year before the test even started for asking if he could use a calculator.”

“No calculators?” I had mine in my jacket pocket.

“I don’t think we’ll need them anyway. The questions are mostly proof stuff. That’s what Rick said.” Quentin kept talking, the nervous energy coming out in his voice. “Hey, it’s nine already. Wonder where the proctor is? I wonder if he’s really that much of a jerk.”

“Good luck,” Mark said to me. He held out his hand toward me jokingly for a handshake over the empty seat between us. I shook it, and noticed a curious expression on his face. Like he wanted to beat me, but he also wanted me to win. He knew that for me, the stakes were high.

“Good luck.”

I sat, tension plucking my nerves, in the moment just before something good happens, where the promise of what could be meets the worry of what might not. Like the day you go to a new school, or the seconds backstage before you walk out and say the opening line that you’ve been practicing for months and months. Like the moment when you first open a book, uncertain of whether or not you’ll enjoy it. You decide to read the first page, and word by word it draws you in until you’ve reached the end of the first chapter without realizing it, then the second. Could the rest of the story live up to the promise? You’d have to wait and see.

“Oh, there he is,” Quentin said. “Wow, he does look like a hardass.” I turned to see the man walking into the auditorium and my heart stopped.



CHAPTER FOUR



Eliot. He held a tablet loosely in his hand as he walked down the aisle to the front of the auditorium. I sunk down in my seat, my throat suddenly seized up in terror.

“Don’t worry,” Mark whispered over to me. He mistook my reaction for fear of a different kind. “You’ll do fine.”

“Good morning,” Eliot said, his voice booming through the auditorium. Most of my professors needed a microphone to lecture in this hall, but his voice carried across all of the rows without any problem. Standing in the front of the room, he seemed much taller than before, more menacing. Everybody was instantly silent.

“My name is Dr. Herceg and I will be administering the test for the internship prize. Welcome.”

As his gaze scanned the audience, I bowed my head. Blood rushed to my face and I scrunched down even more, trying to use Quentin to block myself from view. Eliot was still talking, but his voice seemed to come from far away and there was a buzzing in my ears. I couldn’t pay attention.

Him! Eliot! It was his internship! The pieces clicked into place just like a mathematical identity. Of course. Why hadn’t I realized earlier? His accent. The piano. But more importantly, what do I do now?#p#分页标题#e#

I tuned back in. “You will be given the problems one by one. If you finish a problem early, continue to solve it in as many different ways as possible. I will be able to see all student work from here, anonymously.” He tapped the tablet in front of him. Quentin glanced back at Mark and raised his eyebrow.

“If I do not like what I see, you will be dismissed.” He held up his tablet, a red box reading DISMISSED on the top of the screen. His shirt was rumpled, his eyes red, and I wondered how late he had stayed at the piano. Echoes of the Satie lilted through my mind as he spoke. “If you are incorrect, I will dismiss you. If you are slow, I will dismiss you. If you are sloppy, unorganized, or uncreative in your work, I will dismiss you. Are there any questions?”

His eyes scanned the room, and before I could duck behind Quentin again, he saw me. I swallowed hard. He caught himself, doing a second take upon seeing me, then turned back to the other students.

“No? Then we will begin.” He moved back to the blackboard behind him and wrote the problem on the board, then read it to us out loud, the problem appearing on the top of our tablet screens. “Write all partitions of the number 13. Begin.”

My mind flashed back to my first discrete math class. I had always been good at math, but it was discrete that made me realize I loved it more than anything. And partitions were easy—just different ways of writing numbers as sums. Thirteen could be written as 10+3, or 5+6+2, or thirteen ones all added together.

I took a deep breath. The students around me scribbled furiously on their tablets, and I was worried about going too slow, but I was also worried about being sloppy and missing a partition. And to top it all off, I was worried about Eliot figuring out who I really was. I thought we would have to register at the beginning of the test, but he’d said it was anonymous—would he ask for our names at the end? Did he already know the student list somehow? Did he already know I had lied to him? Take it easy, Brynn. Step by step.