True Love Waits

When Evelyn saw the pic Calvert sent her, she quickly turned her screen off. She didn't want Carlos to catch a glimpse of it.

Too late! Carlos had seen it anyway.

Evelyn was a little embarrassed about it. She shifted in her seat and went quiet.

She wouldn't talk about it unless Carlos brought it up.

Carlos' face darkened. 'No wonder we haven't seen much of Sheffield. He's two-timing my daughter! I think another lesson is in order.'

Just then, Evelyn's phone buzzed as another message came in. This time, she was smart enough to keep her phone away from Carlos, balancing it on her leg under the table. She'd wait till she had a chance to check her messages away from prying eyes. When Carlos wasn't looking, she checked the top bar for notifications. 'His ex-girlfriend,' the message read.

She took another look at the picture. The woman held Sheffield's hand, looking up at him. It seemed that the two were talking about something.

The message was from Calvert.

She tried not to show any emotion as she turned the screen off again. She knew Calvert was trying to stir up shit between her and Sheffield. But that didn't make it hurt any less.

Sheffield had been busy for awhile now. He didn't even have time to see her, but he did have time to see his ex-girlfriend.

Evelyn was in a trance as the meeting continued. She had no clue what the others were saying. Her thoughts were a million miles away.

But none of this escaped Carlos. He knew his daughter better than anyone, knew something was bugging her. He ended the meeting early, a frown on his face.

When everyone left, only Carlos and Evelyn remained. "I'm surprised at you, Evelyn. Losing your cool over a random pic?" he asked.

Evelyn was confused. 'What does Dad mean?'

"I'm not trying to mend anything between you and Sheffield. But has he torn down those walls already? You were always the ice princess. And now a picture gets you upset." It wasn't just here. She was distracted at work, too. That angered him.

nodded, "I'm sorry,

is the guy you gave your heart to. While you were working, he was with

and Evelyn was

she was all over him, not the other way around. A photo didn't matter at all! Was it really his

But before he could leave to see

materials. And he

the car, and finally drove back

straight to the study. He booted up his computer, and began to make

Three days later

huge hit. In any given Internet cafe, the place was illuminated by glowing

were the

using it would be able to get massive amounts of gold, as well as level up quickly. Everyone liked it. It was difficult, if not impossible to detect, so server-side anti-cheating protections were no help. The sales reached a fever pitch. The designer made hundreds of thousands of

department head soon heard about the cheating program. He asked the developers to step up their

despite their best efforts, they failed. It was like

report it to his superior. One

Carlos contacted Star Anise and asked him to figure out a way to disable or even destroy the cheating

Three hundred million," replied Star

million," Carlos

already, and might eventually become one

designers, and 3-D modelers. A composer had to be brought in for the music, and they needed video game sound designers to create entire libraries of custom sound effects. And 5.5 million lines of code later, they had a game. Most importantly, the commercial

was for nothing. Carlos' reply was to the point. "Deal,"

heuristics used to identify cheat programs and viruses, making it more robust. He also patched the subtle alterations the program made to the game's code. Current players would need to update their games. For new players, the additions would be

at the screen of the online

him. It was possible that he would ask him

started wondering if Star Anise was either Matthew or Sheffield. Those were the only two who braved his wrath to

Matthew was unlikely to be