Billionaire Romance Boxed Set 1(107)

“Hello, I’m Dr. Herceg.”

“Mark. Mark Joseph.” The boy shook his hand firmly and they walked out of the back exit of the auditorium to the empty classroom Eliot had chosen for the interviews.

“Very impressive. You and your fellow students. This is one of the finest test groups I’ve seen.” Eliot didn’t have to lie; the competition had grown fiercer each year, and this selection of students did not disappoint. Pasadena University, for all its administrative idiocy, certainly admitted some of the top mathematical talent in the country.

“Thank you, sir.” They sat in the student chairs, Eliot leaning back with his tablet in his lap. The boy scratched nervously at the side of his glasses.

“Mark Joseph. Any relation to the dean?”

“He’s my dad.” The boy stared down at his feet as though significantly embarrassed by having to reveal this fact. Eliot had to keep himself from laughing at the irony. After all that nonsense with Patterson, to have the dean’s son show up as a top candidate!

“Don’t worry, I won’t give preference one way or another. I only care about your math.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Which problem gave you the most trouble on the test?” he asked.

They sat and talked about the problems for quite some time before Eliot glanced at his watch and noticed over thirty minutes had passed. The boy impressed him, a good fit for the program and able to communicate his difficulties easily. A strikingly intelligent student. In any other year Eliot would have had his winner right there. And yet—

He had not dared to hope that Valentina would make it this far on the test. He thrilled to know that her mind was as top-rate as any of the other students there. He interviewed the other two boys in succession, leaving her for the end. Neither of the two other boys impressed him as much as Mark had. The red-haired one couldn’t explain his process except to repeat the particular steps he had taken, and Eliot needed someone who would be able to understand the broader strokes of the field he worked in. The same issue plagued the other student, who got frustrated while explaining his missteps on one of the proofs and clammed up completely when asked to describe his overall process of thought. No, he needed someone able to acknowledge their mistakes, someone who could talk him through their work. He hoped Valentina would be that person. If not, well, at least he had one candidate who could fill the spot.

Walking back down to the auditorium, Eliot felt his step grow lighter. She would do well, he knew it. She was a brilliant mathematician if she had gotten this far, and he already knew her temperament suited the internship. He walked into the auditorium filled with hope.

“Valentina—”

Her seat was empty. Eliot’s mouth stopped half-open. His thoughts turned slow, fuzzed.

“Valentina?”

There was only a note on the desk in the front of the room. He read it and crumpled the page in his hand. He looked out, as though expecting her to materialize from nothing into the seat where previously she had been sitting.

Eliot shoved the note into his pocket. He would not let her disappear so easily.





Fate told me I wasn’t a Disney princess, and I agreed. When the other girls at school wanted to play in imaginary royal palaces built out of cardboard and imagination, I went along. But I was never the princess. I was the funny sidekick lobster that helped the princess get the prince. What I never saw in myself—what nobody ever saw in me—was the slim grace of the hand that rests the tiara on her brow.

Instead, I looked to the older legends, to the stories my mother told me about the goddesses: their vengeances, their fury.

Me, Cinderella? A dainty, feminine orchid, destined to be plucked? No. I was Artemis, strong and intelligent and cunning.



Of Artemis,—her bow, with points drawn back,

A golden hue on her white rounded breast

Reflecting, while the arrow’s ample barb

Gleams o’er her hand, and at his heart is aim’d.



Nobody would come looking for me if I ran away, I thought.

I was wrong.

Princes don’t always go for the ones in glass slippers, it seems, and Eliot already had a hold on my heart that I could not escape from, no matter how fast or how far I ran.





CHAPTER FIVE



“Who is she?”

“I don’t know her name.”

Patterson’s brows sloped deeply into the wrinkled skin above his nose. He shook his head at Eliot, who paced across the oak floors of his office in vain.

“You have to pick a winner. We have to announce a winner. Today.”

“I have picked,” Eliot insisted.

“There is no Valentina Alastair!” Patterson looked at Eliot like he was a crazy person. Who knows, perhaps the man was right. Perhaps Eliot was crazy. But if there was one thing he knew, it was that Valentina was real, even if her name wasn’t really hers. And he wasn’t about to tell Patterson that his intended winner had turned tail and fled. It irritated him that the tablet system designed to preserve anonymity had backfired on him so miserably.