After arriving at the office, Raymond went straight to his cabin and called up David. He asked him to prepone all the meetings to that evening. He didn't want to have a single idle minute. His body was still in some kind of trance and some unknown form of anger was raising its fang inside him. Every time he thought he was getting close to her, she was bringing in a barrier in between and that barrier was none other than Vikram. He didn't want to recollect her face. He didn't want to recollect the moment when she turned her back at him and took Vikram's name.

Raymond completed three back to back meetings and then started checking his emails. Chloe had sent him Akira's appointment letter and her remuneration details for his reference. He stared at the laptop screen blankly for quite some time and then picked up his phone and texted Vikram -

"Your candidate Ms.Akira has been hired. Appointment letter had already been sent to her".

But his hand paused before pressing send. He deleted the text message and types again -

"Suggested candidate Ms.Akira has been hired. Appointment letter had already been sent to her"

and then sent it to Vikram.

Something within him didn't want her to be anybody else's.

He was disgusted with his stupid and childish behavior. Now that the meetings were done, he was left all alone in his cabin. No matter how hard he tried to restrain himself, he just couldn't stop thinking about her. There were plenty of emails to be followed upon and resumes of people to be checked, but he just couldn't focus on anything else. His thoughts were running in parallel. On one hand, he wanted to make her, his own and on the other he wanted himself to realize that she was meant to be his.

But sanity and rationality had ditched him ever since he had met her. His mind colluded with her images and his senses were overpowered with her smell, her touch, her breath. Her familiar faint lavender smell made him go crazy again and again. He felt like he was lost in a dense maze of fate and there was no way to get out of it. Despair, pain and greed, all came together knocking at his door.

Raymond got a grip back when his phone buzzed with a message.

"Thanks for honoring my condition." - Vikram

And suddenly the faint glow of happy thoughts in his mind was clouded by this one single message.

---

A content smile spread on Vikram's face. Raymond's message came in and provided him the much-needed relief. Although he had an agreement with Raymond, as it was just verbal, he wasn't sure if he was going to keep his words. He was already worried the whole day just thinking about how upset Akira was in the morning. But now he knew this acceptance news of hers into Delphie would definitely bring in a big smile on her face.

It was almost time for Vikram to leave for Akira's house for dinner. But he was surprised as there were no calls from Akira to inform him about her selection. He wanted to call her that very instant and congratulate her but he refrained himself from doing so as he didn't want her to have any idea that he was the one who initiated all this.

Vikram was just about to shut his laptop when he got a call from Akira. He assumed that she had called him to inform him about getting the internship offer. He assumed that he would be talking to an extremely happy and beaming version of Akira but it was the entire opposite. She sounded super low like and gloomy like someone had sucked all the life out of her.

"What happened Akira? Why are you sounding like this?", asked Vikram.

"I couldn't get in", Akira said and paused for a while.

"The HR of Delphie send me a mail just now that I couldn't clear the interview," she added.

"Wait, what?" ask a surprise Vikram. He couldn't believe it as just a few seconds before he had received an affirmation from Raymond through a message.

"This is so not possible. You told your interview went fine. With your credentials, any company will hire you Akira," said Vikram.

"Any company but not Delphi", said Akira and she sobbed a bit.

Vikram was unable to connect anything for a moment. He thought a bit and then said -

"Ok don't maul over it. Give me 40 minutes and I will be there," said Vikram and disconnected the call.

After disconnecting the call Vikram made another call to Peter who was his assistant and asked him to prepare for a cake and huge flower bouquet of baby breath, which was Akira's favorite. He specifically instructed Peter to make sure that all of this was delivered exactly after 1 hour at Akira's place. After finishing the call a smug smile spread on his face and he said to himself -

"If you want to play, then I will play along Akira !!!".

---

Akira finished cooking everything with the help of Mike and cleaned up the kitchen. When it was about time for Vikram to arrive, she took the lens solution from Mike's room and put in her eyes to look like she had been crying for long. Mike took a copy of her resume and tore it into pieces and scattered it all over to make the environment look all dramatic. The brother-sister duo had indeed planned well.

Vikram reached Akira's place and saw her sitting on the dining table with a sulky face. Torn pieces of her resume were strewn all across the floor. She looked like she had cried for hours. Seeing her for a moment Vikram thought that perhaps she was telling the truth, but then he saw the lens solution near the TV cabinet and immediately understood her drama. He knew that they were lying but they had no idea that he knew it all. The messers were about to be the messies.

Vikram kneeled down in front of her and held her hand tenderly and wiped her fake tears with his napkin. Then he got up and hugged her. For a moment Akira started instantly regretting playing with Vikram's emotions. She looked at Mike in a pleading manner as she didn't want to play anymore, but when Mike rolled his eyes she decided to continue her fake sobs in Vikram's arms.

Even though it was all a play, his concern was too real and too sincere.

They all were startled when the doorbell rang.