Her phone, which had been silent all day, suddenly buzzed. It was an unknown number. She ignored it. It buzzed again. A voicemail. She listened, pressing the phone to her ear.
“A message for Ms. Elena Sanchez,” said a crisp, professional woman’s voice. “My name is Amanda Bishop, Executive Assistant to Mr. Julian Thorn. Mr. Thorn requests a meeting with you this afternoon at his offices. A car is being sent to your address and will arrive in 15 minutes to bring you downtown. Please be ready.”
The message ended.
Elena’s heart hammered against her ribs. A car? A meeting? Was he going to sue her? Blacklist her from every restaurant in the city? She was terrified. But what choice did she have? If she ignored him, he could still do all those things. At least this way, she could face him.
She splashed cold water on her face, changed out of her sweatpants into her one interview outfit—a simple black blouse and slacks—and ran a brush through her hair. She felt like a prisoner being called to her own sentencing.
Exactly 15 minutes later, a gleaming black Mercedes S-Class sedan glided to a stop in front of her apartment building. The driver, a man in a black suit, got out and opened the rear door for her, not saying a word. Elena slid into the plush leather interior. The car was silent, insulated from the world. It pulled away from the curb, leaving her old, failed life behind. She had no idea she was being driven toward a new one.
The drive was short. They pulled into a private garage beneath a towering glass skyscraper: Thorn Global Headquarters. The driver led her to a private elevator. He used a keycard, and the elevator shot upwards, not stopping until it chimed softly and the doors opened directly into a penthouse office.
The office was vast. Three of its walls were floor-to-ceiling glass, offering a staggering 180-degree view of Chicago and Lake Michigan. The furniture was minimal, expensive, and severe. And at a massive black desk, staring out the window, stood Julian Thorn. He was in his shirt sleeves, his suit jacket gone. He looked like he hadn’t slept.
“Miss Bishop, you can go. Hold all my calls,” he said, not turning.
The assistant who had called Elena, a woman as sharp and severe as the office, nodded once and vanished through a side door. The elevator doors slid shut behind Elena, leaving her alone with him. The silence was deafening. He finally turned to face her.
His expression was not angry. It was calculating, intense. He looked at her the way he had in the restaurant, but the contempt was gone, replaced by a raw, unsettling curiosity.
“You have a master’s in linguistics,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Elena said, her voice small but steady.
“From where?”
“Georgetown.”
He nodded slowly. “My alma mater. My father sits on the board.”
Elena’s heart sank. Of course, this was the old boy network. He was going to have her degree revoked.
“He never mentioned the linguistics department,” Thorn continued, walking slowly toward her. “He considered it a ‘soft science,’ a waste of tuition.” He stopped a few feet from her. “Last night, you spoke in a Gulf dialect. Your accent was flawless. Better than my own. I pay my tutors $500 an hour, and they don’t sound as good as you.”
“I spent a year in Riyadh for my thesis,” Elena said, finding her footing. “I lived it.”
“You… you lived in Riyadh, and you were serving me scallops,” he said, more to himself than to her. He seemed genuinely baffled by the disconnect.
“Student loans, Mr. Thorn. They don’t pay themselves.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Last night, I was an arrogant fool. What I said was inexcusable. It was the result of a very high-stress negotiation. But that is no excuse. I am sorry.”
The apology hung in the air, feeling as strange and foreign in that room as her Arabic had in the restaurant.
“Thank you,” Elena said quietly.
“But I didn’t bring you here to apologize,” he said, his tone shifting back to business. “I brought you here because I have a problem.” He gestured to his desk, where the same documents from the restaurant were spread out. “This is a $2 billion deal,” he said. “A green energy infrastructure project. My partners are a consortium based in Riyadh. The same consortium, I’m sure, whose dialect you just perfected.”
He paused, his eyes narrowing. “The deal is falling apart. We’re arguing over contractual nuances. My lead translator, a man I’ve used for years, quit two days ago. Poached by a competitor. I’ve been using a translation service, and it’s a disaster. We’re talking past each other. Things are getting hostile.”
He locked his eyes on hers. “My associate, Mr. Cole, was impressed. I was more than impressed. You didn’t just understand what I said. You understood the subtext. The insult. The nuance.”
He walked back to his desk and picked up a single sheet of paper. “I called the Meridian this morning,” he said. “I spoke to Mr. Peterson.”
Elena braced herself.
“I informed him that his behavior was appalling. That you were the most professional person in that room. And that if he ever wanted a single member of my board, my company, or anyone I’ve ever spoken to to set foot in his establishment again, he would issue you a formal apology and offer you your job back, with a promotion to manager.”
Elena blinked. “He… he did?”
“He agreed, of course,” Thorn said dismissively. “You can have your old job back, Miss Sanchez. You can go back to pouring water for men like me.”
He slid the piece of paper across the desk. It was a check.
“Or,” he said, “you can accept this. It’s a signing bonus. For one million dollars. And you can come and save my two-billion-dollar deal.”
Elena stared at the check. It was a cashier’s check. Made out to Elena Sanchez. The number was one million dollars. She had never seen so many zeros. Her mind reeled. It was a joke. It had to be.
“One… one million dollars?” she stammered.
“That’s your signing bonus,” Thorn said impatiently, as if this were a normal Tuesday. “Your salary for the project will be triple that. The project is estimated to last three months. If we fail, you keep the bonus. If we succeed, you get a… significant completion fee.”
He mistook her stunned silence for negotiation. “Look, Miss Sanchez. I am in a bad position. My competitors know my translator quit. They are actively trying to sabotage this deal. The consortium I’m meeting with… they are very traditional. They value respect. They value nuance. Last night, you proved you are a master of it. I’m not hiring you to translate words. I’m hiring you to translate intent.”
Elena found her voice. It was shaking. “You… you insulted me. You got me fired. And now you’re offering me a million dollars?”
“I didn’t get you fired,” he corrected her, his voice sharp. “Your incompetent manager fired you, and I rectified that. But yes, the irony is not lost on me. I am offering you a fortune to fix a problem I am having with the very language I used to demean you. The universe, it seems, has a twisted sense of humor.”
Elena looked from the check to his face. He was not joking. He was desperate, and he was smart. He knew, from her thirty-second reply, exactly what she was capable of. He wasn’t hiring a waitress. He was hiring a weapon…
