He smiled with his eyes as he looked at her like he was counting his blessings for having met her, for having her in his life.

"God! What would I have done without you?", he said and then softly kissed on her lips. As he parted away, she opened her eyes and looked at him and then said,

"I will be waiting".

His smoldering eyes looked at her intently for a few seconds and then he said,

"You have no idea how much I have waited !!!", then cupping her chin he gave her a kiss on her forehead and said,

"Ask Michael to come to the study room. I will join you guys after finishing my bath".

"You will take a bath now? It's quite late and you might catch a cold", Akira asked all concerned.

He laughed in his head because of her naiveness and then he said,

"You go to the study room. I will come and Oh!!! Please feel free to pick something else and wear. I have a couple of basic clothes for you in my wardrobe", saying that he went inside the washroom, pondering in his head,

"Will she ever be able to know what fire rages within me?"

"Will she be able to set me free?"

.

.

After Raymond left, Akira picked a basic white t-shirt from Raymond's wardrobe from the laundry section and then put on the basic pajamas that she had got with herself and went downstairs.

Michael was sitting the hall room now, but the TV was switched off. He was intently looking at his computer screen and was typing something. She hesitated at first as their first introduction itself was quite awkward, to be put in better words. But then taking a couple of steps ahead and a bit of courage she said,

"Um... Hello Michael. I am sorry that we had our first introduction in such a horrible way".

Michael lifted his head up from his system and with a gentle smile on his face he said,

"Well, I beg to differ. I would like to call it memorable !!!".

She heard him and it made her go all scarlet again because of the embarrassment and it didn't go unnoticed by Michael's sharp observing eyes.

"Ok, my bad !!!"

"Let's not discuss that again. Have a seat. Where is Raymond by the way?"

"Umm.. he went to take a bath. He asked us to go to the study room and he will join us there".

"Bath? Now? He had just finished his bath before you came. What did you do?", Michael spoke with his playful eyes.

"Oh !!! I don't know. We were just talking and he said he wants to take bath !!!"

Michael laughed from his core after hearing her speak and then said,

"He was right !!! You are really really untainted by this world".

Then taking a deep breath he said,

"Let's go to the study room".

"Sure !!!", Akira said and walked towards the study room.

The moment she entered the study, she was shocked. It was not at all like the way she had seen it before. There were multiple whiteboards all over the room, piles of charts and paper were strewn all over. She turned back to look at Michael but found him acting all normal and saw him staring at one of the whiteboards.

Before she could even ask anything,

"All settled?"

She heard Raymond's voice from behind.

He looked all fresh like a lark after taking bath and she could register a faint waft of his cologne from distance.

Entering the room, he looked at Akira and asked,

"Give us some insight into the banner that I had asked you to design. We can huddle more here, together".

"Well I don't have much but I had this theme in my mind", saying that Akira took out her notebook and picked up a marker and went to a clean whiteboard in a corner and started explaining them about her design. She was a bit nervous in the beginning, but as she found her flow, she started explain her creative ideas with rock solid confidence.

After she was done explaining, she looked at both of them for inputs, but she saw them sitting all quiet and talking with each other through their eyes.

"I mean this is just the first draft that I had in my head. I will work on something better by tomorrow", Akira said, after getting no feedback from both of them.

"Are you kidding me?", Michael snapped.

"This is just brilliant !!! Really brilliant !!! You have indeed found a gem", Michael said and gave a light pat on Raymond's shoulder.

Akira nervously looked at Raymond, like she wanted his opinion because no matter what others said, for her it was his opinion that mattered the most.

He smiled at her and said,

"It's good. Just lose the 7th animation part and it's good to go. Can you design it by tonight?"

"Umm... yeah".

"But I just have one small question?", Akira asked looking at Raymond.

"What is all this? I mean why this new floor plan and why a new banner and promotion theme? Our team at Delphie is already done with it right?"

Raymond heard her and then looked at Michael and taking a deep breath he said,

"That's to fool some people and to make them believe that we are unarmed and unprepared".

"What do you mean?", Akira asked all puzzled.

"Michael, my friend here is one of the board members of GCG. The rules of the event have been twisted in just a few days and they will release the new rules on Friday evening and the event is on Sunday. I think it's a pre-devised strategy to make the entries of most of the companies ineligible for this event".

"Do they even do such a thing?", Akira asked all surprised.

"Well if the rules are declared on Friday then there is very less probability of any company being able to incorporate such changes in just a day or two as the event is on Sunday. So unless you already have the tech, you are doomed".

"Oh then it's great that you were working on this tech from before", Akira said and sighed.

"Well when you have your own folks as enemies, you tend to be extra cautious. They are changing the theme to Virtual Reality and the work that I had was for a new game but I have decided to integrate it with our existing game", Raymond replied.

"So technically speaking we aren't cheating. We are just using what we had to make what we want", Michael said and finished the last sip from his beer can.

"So the coding part is almost finished and Michael has a couple of dummy setups and we plan to try our game on it. It should be as glitch-free as possible and we will work on that part till Sunday".

"I see", said Akira.

"So now I think you know how important it is to have a good banner and a catchy ad for our new game. Because eventually, that will be the face of the game. That will be what will sell it in the market. So I need it to be flawless Akira", Raymond said with a serious look on his face.

"I get it", said Akira.

"And if we need some minor modification in the guild design and character movement set, then that also needs to be completed by you. I mean I know that you are just interning, but my friend here has great faith in you and I hope you will not disappoint him", Michael said.

"I won't, I promise", Akira said looking at Raymond.

"So that's why it's paramount that no one gets to know about it Akira", Raymond said.

"Sure I will not tell anyone".

Raymond heard her and then after a second he added,

"Not even Vikram".