Under the heiress facade

Hera took a deep breath. "Let's start."

Bernard was excited. Did this mean that Hera was accepting his identity? He recalled she had always been the one to initiate the attacks before. "After you."

Hera didn't hesitate and began to type. The clattering of the keyboard flooded the office.

Her eyes darted back and forth between the rapidly changing windows and lines of code on the screen in a daze. She remembered how they had once studied basic computer programming languages together, and now they were competing against each other. What surprised her the most was that Bernard, who had pretended to be pitiful, claiming he was struggling at the Killians and needed to fend for himself, was actually the Grandmaster of Astral Nova, a figure feared even by the four influential families! Hera's moment of distraction led to a code error, but Bernard ignored it and skillfully avoided it.

She frowned and reminded him, "Pay attention, and don't go easy on me!"

Bernard smiled. Hera was better than he had expected. She even sensed he was going easy on her.

"If you don't take it seriously, I won't feel any satisfaction if I win." He smirked.

Hera's temple throbbed. She hadn't expected Bernard to be such a jerk. He had been pretending all along! She even wondered if she truly knew him.

crying later." With that, Hera forced herself to clear her

marvel at her learning ability. The flaws she had shown in their last match were gone,

never ceased to surprise him. He was

locked in and

...

hours later, she breathed

codes on the screen She felt much better and slumped against

rubbed his sore neck and

and he

set

joy in her victory. Instead, she was filled with anger.

avoided her. "I lost. Please let me off the hook,

think I don't know you were going easy on me!"

her to catch on.