His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 234: Emory Starling

** Harper **

"I may have ... misspelled my name."

"..."

Harper stared at the girl, who she thought was quite smart based on the interview just a moment ago. Yet this was such a dumb lie that she had to reconsider the assessment.

"You misspelled your name?" she asked, not hiding the suspicion in her voice. Totally likely story, to misspell something you’ve been writing all your life and submit it on a job application without double checking!

At least all the myths surrounding the "scammer" finally made sense now. Because Emory Starling didn’t exist in the first place. Because—

"Alright, alright, I’ll be honest." The girl shrank a little when she faced Harper’s stare. "I was doing it on purpose. I tried to hide my last name, which is Sterling, not Starling."

— because ...

Oh.

"And before you ask, yes, it’s the same Sterling from Sterling Trust. My father is the owner of your investment company."

... Oh.

Harper stared at the girl again, this time for a completely different reason. Seriously? Was she really looking at ... Eli’s half sister right now?

But how could it even be possible? Both Eli and his father were tall with dark hair and sharp features. How could this girl be so tiny and blonde and, well, completely unlike the two men in every way?

Though at the same time, Harper realized that she probably should’ve seen this coming. Or at least suspected it when she noticed the ES initials and the impossible-to-track existence of an Emory Starling. Damn she was slow.

"That has nothing to do with why I wanted to intern here though, and I hoped to get through the interview process fair and square without my name getting in the way, so I made a little change to my resume." Emory Sterling was now looking down at the floor. At least she had the sense to look increasingly sheepish. "And I wasn’t planning to keep up the pretense. I was going to wait until the end of the day, when I’m done with all the one-on-one rounds to tell you about it. So ... this wouldn’t affect my interview results, right?"

Now, that was a loaded question.

"You do realize that you’re trying to cover up a major conflict of interest?" Harper wanted to sigh, both at the girl’s naivety and at her own failure to think of it sooner. "The funding for the position you’re interviewing for comes entirely from your father’s company, which means that we can’t possibly make a hiring decision without taking into account who you are. And the person currently in charge of the investment program—"

She paused there, wondering for a moment how much Emory knew about that part of her extended family.

"Is my brother of some sort?" Emory helpfully finished the sentence, with an expression that suggested an educated guess. Then she shrugged, as if that portion of the fact didn’t concern her at all. "But no one from their company knows I’m here, and I don’t care what they think. I applied because I liked your game, and the job description fits my interest. Not because I have some hidden relationship with your sponsors. In fact, I didn’t even know about the business deal until I did my interview research and read the latest news on your company’s website."

Harper pondered that. The girl had a point there — lying about her real identity aside, was it truly fair to her that her interview results had to be influenced by the last name she carried?

Once again, Emory reminded Harper a little of her own experience, back when Eli first showed up unannounced to the investors meeting. She could relate to the feeling — it was one thing to get her project endorsed by Sterling Trust’s technical advisor while being presented anonymously, and an entirely different thing if it was simply put on the agenda because she was Eli’s friend. Personal ties held a powerful advantage, but not everyone liked the true value of their capability being overshadowed by those connections.

"I can understand where you’re coming from," she admitted. "That said, you could’ve been more open with your concerns at the beginning of the process and let the recruitment team help you. In the end, your real name needs to come up if you pass the interview and get an official offer. Do you really want everyone to start questioning why you made a ’typo’ in your own name?"

Emory grimaced. "I’m not failing the interview because I lied, am I?" she asked hopefully.

Harper wondered if her heart was too soft for a manager. Maybe it was. "It’s alright. I’ll make the corrections on file for you this time. As to the conflict of interest, however—" She glanced at the clock. She was starting to cut into Lindsey’s session time, so she’d have to make a quick decision on the spot. "I’ll let my colleagues know about our chat after they give me feedback on their individual interviews, so that their first impression of you will be unbiased. Then I’ll have to discuss it with my own manager before we make a final decision."

And probably Eli, too. Although this felt suspiciously like mixing up personal and professional relationships, it was hard to draw the line when Sterling Trust was a family business to begin with, and to top that with all the family history hidden beneath the surface ...

Emory nodded in obvious relief, whereas Harper could already feel her head starting to hurt a little.

Eli had told her enough about being manipulated into his current job by his father, and she could only imagine how complicated the internal workings of their little finance empire must be. What would his father think of Emory working as an intern at their startup partner? What would Eli think? And more personally ... How was she supposed to handle being the manager of her boyfriend’s half-sister, who he may or may not hate just as much as he did his father?

She could almost see the drama looming and smirking at her from right over the horizon.