He Came Back to Collect

Chapter 005

After talking his landlady into feeding him breakfast, Cornell changed into the suit he'd rented the night before and headed straight for Sterling Tower.

He'd found a job posting online the previous evening. Maria Sten was looking for an executive assistant. If she wouldn't have him as a fiancé, perhaps she'd have him as an employee. Either way, he'd be close enough to keep her safe.

Sterling Group occupied nearly forty floors of the tower, right in the heart of Bellwick City. With downtown property prices as high as they were, the offices alone said plenty about how much money the company had.

Its main businesses were fashion and cosmetics. The products sold throughout the Republic of Aldovia and in a growing number of markets abroad, making it an international company in every sense.

The industry also meant that the building was full of attractive women in business attire. Plenty of men would have considered working there a perk in itself, so every recruitment drive drew a flood of applications.

To cut down the numbers, the company had imposed two additional requirements on male applicants. They needed an undergraduate degree from one of the world's top fifty universities, and they had to speak at least two foreign languages well enough to deal with overseas business partners.

People with those qualifications generally had no shortage of career options. Few were likely to settle for an assistant's job.

After a full morning of screening, fewer than ten men had made it through to the second round. Almost all wore designer clothes and the self-satisfied expressions of men who had never needed a paycheck. They'd come for the women, not the work.

“I hear Maria Sten is gorgeous.”

“Apparently. Good luck finding a decent picture, though. She hardly ever talks to the press.”

“Everyone says she's worth a look.”

Cornell, who had also passed the first round, listened to their eager speculation and shook his head.

While the candidates waited, Ms. Reinhart, the head of HR, took the files for all thirty finalists up to the CEO's office.

The room covered more than a thousand square feet, with a curved wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking much of downtown Bellwick City. Sleek metal bookcases held files and catalogs, and an enormous mahogany desk stood nearby.

Behind it, Maria sat in a cream business suit, staring absently at a potted evergreen.

“Ms. Sten, these are the résumés for this afternoon's candidates.”

“Thank you.”

She opened the stack without much interest, then stopped at a familiar photograph.

There was that face again, complete with the smirk.

“Cornell Bateman?”

“Is something wrong, Ms. Sten?”

Maria read his résumé more closely.

A master's in marketing management from Halewick University, completed on a full scholarship.

She put a hand over her mouth.

The man who'd sat in a café asking whether the water was free had a degree like that?

Not a chance. He'd made it up.

Bad enough that he was an embarrassment. Now he was lying about his qualifications, too.

“Have this man removed from... Wait.”

She reconsidered. Getting through the initial screening was one thing; passing the next round was another. There was no need to throw him out when he was almost certain to fail anyway.

Still, she'd rather not leave it to chance. The last thing she wanted was to see that smug face every day.

“Give this candidate a little extra attention,” she told Ms. Reinhart, making quite clear what sort of attention she meant.

“Has he done something to upset you? Or is he someone you're...?”

The look on Maria's face stopped the question before it went any further.

Ms. Reinhart collected the files and quickly excused herself. Once outside, she glanced down at Cornell's résumé and shook her head.

Whatever he'd done, it had cost him the job.

Oblivious to the conversation upstairs, Cornell sat back in his chair in the testing room, chewing gum and humming under his breath. Compared with prison, even waiting for a job interview felt like a luxury.

The door opened, and a woman in a fitted black suit entered. She wore a silk blouse beneath her jacket, with black stockings under her skirt. Her amber hair was pinned up, and her polite smile suggested a woman entirely comfortable being in charge.

Three women followed with the test papers, all of them tall, curvy, and just as striking.

“Good afternoon. I'm Lora Reinhart, the HR manager, and I'll be supervising this part of the assessment.”

She waited until the room had settled.

“We'll be testing your language skills. As the personal assistant to Maria Sten, you'll need a certain amount of good luck as well as ability, so we've added an element of chance. We have papers in English, German, Italian, Japanese, and several other languages. Each of you will receive two, selected at random. If neither happens to be a language you speak, I'm afraid that's your bad luck.”

Still wearing her professional smile, she signaled to the women behind her.

“Please begin handing them out. The candidate with the highest score will get the position, so I suggest you give this your best effort.”

Her gaze moved over the applicants and came to rest on Cornell.

He had one leg crossed over the other and was still chewing his gum, looking remarkably unconcerned among all those anxious faces. She found herself wondering what sort of man could provoke such a pointed instruction from Maria.

Whatever the answer, he wouldn't look so relaxed once he saw his papers.

The thought brought a small smile to her lips.

Cornell had good reason to be confident. Years of special forces work overseas had put him alongside soldiers from all over the world. He learned quickly and spoke more than twenty languages fluently. A language test didn't worry him.

Then he looked down at the papers in front of him and nearly swore aloud.

The first was in Vardic.

Of all the languages they could have picked, they'd found one spoken in small countries such as Tervosk and Darsenia, barely used beyond that part of the world. It had absorbed vocabulary from Italian and several Slavic languages and had a reputation for being fiendishly difficult to learn.

The second paper was in Latin.

He stared at them for another moment, then raised his hand.

“Excuse me. You're testing people on Vardic?”

He held up the paper.

Laughter rippled through the room. Several applicants had been grumbling about their own assignments, but a look at his made them feel much better. A few gave him sympathetic glances.

Lora cleared her throat, restoring order.

She wouldn't normally have resorted to something so petty, but Maria had made her wishes clear.

“As I explained, our CEO isn't looking for someone with bad luck,” she said, keeping her amusement out of her voice. “If you don't feel you can complete the assessment, you're welcome to withdraw. The door is right behind you.”

Vardic was an exceptionally obscure choice, and that was precisely why she'd chosen it. When Maria wanted something done, Lora made sure there was no room for error.

Cornell had no answer to that.

He checked the time allowed: two hours.

No need to rush, then. He might as well get some sleep first.

Lora watched him settle back and close his eyes. She wasn't surprised. She'd personally selected his two papers; there couldn't be more than a handful of people in the country who knew both languages.

The room settled into the scratch of pens on paper.

The tests were difficult enough that no one finished early. With ten minutes left, Lora looked over to find Cornell finally waking up after sleeping through almost the entire session.

He picked up his pen and began writing.

The rapid scratching drew glances from nearby candidates. His pen moved without a pause, pressing hard enough for them to hear it several seats away.

Most looked away with a smile. He was probably guessing at the multiple-choice questions, hoping to scrape together enough points to avoid the humiliation of a zero.

When time was called, the papers were collected. Lora stood at the front of the room while the results were compiled, with the applicants waiting to find out who had won the job.

Half an hour later, one of her assistants handed her the score sheet.

She looked at the name at the top.

Her brows drew together.

“What is this?” she demanded under her breath. “You all have degrees. Do I really have to mark the papers myself?”

The three women exchanged bewildered looks.

Lora tapped the sheet.

“Bring me Cornell Bateman's papers. There is no way this is right.”