Bonus 1

Abhay and Selena’s One Shot:

“Hurry up, geek!” Selena snapped in a hushed tone.

“Well sorry, genius, if you can do this any faster, then by all means, be my guest,” came Abhay’s sour reply from his crouched position in front of the main circuit board.

“Fucking the motherboard is your speciality.” Selena blew a stray lock of her hair off of her face as she checked her watch for the hundredth time.

“Hey! Always respect the motherboard!” Abhay snapped at her. “It’s the heart of the computer.”

“Jeez, look at you getting all emotional over a damn machine heart.” Selena shook her head at Abhay’s obsession with electronics. But she had to admit, the guy was a fantastic hacker.

“Well, the government is paying us a handsome bill just so I can flirt with this ‘damn machine heart’ all I want,” Abhay reminded her. “The least I could do is be a little grateful.”

Selena shook her head again but didn’t say anything. Government missions were always high-risk jobs, but as Abhay had pointed out, they pay a hefty sum for it. Like retrieving all data stored inside the computer of a multinational company that the government suspected of dealing in illegal arms trade. That was the extent of their assignment. When it came to protecting big names, it was Julian’s territory. Turner Security Agency provided security to celebrities and high-ranking officers in Canada. Selena and Abhay occasionally helped the police and government officials solve cases but that wasn’t their main focus right now.

Today, Selena was dressed as a private secretary, in a white shirt and a steel colored pencil skirt, sporting a pair of killer black stilettos. Her long black hair, usually styled in a ponytail, was tied in a tight bun on top of her head to finish the look. Abhay was also in a disguise, dressed in a charcoal black suit jacket and pants, with a deep blue shirt underneath. She had to admit, Abhay looked hot.

She’d only ever seen him in his jeans and leather jackets but he cleaned up pretty nicely. It’s not that she’s never noticed how hot he was before, but she had known Abhay ever since she joined the agency and she only saw him as that: her comrade and competitor. They were always battling to see who got the most amount of missions, who got a raise first, etcetera. Then the battles became personal when they started competing for who got the hotter date. She never knew why the bets had started in the first place, though, but she remembered it vaguely had something to do with hearing Abhay tell his best friend, Julian, that she wasn’t his type. Well, that was his loss, not hers.

At least that’s what she told herself constantly.

~

Abhay could feel Selena’s gaze bore into his back, and it made a shiver run down his spine. Man, that girl could glare! But what he couldn’t quite figure out was what he’d done this time to earn it. When he thought about it, he could never quite figure out why Selena and he never saw eye to eye.

If he was honest with himself, he had been intrigued by her ever since they started working at the agency together. Sure, he’d once been foolish enough to think she wasn’t his type, but as the years progressed, he’d found out that there was no one better suited for him than Selena Fraser.

Despite knowing that, he still made those silly bets with her and fought with her over silly things, all the while wishing that they could just drop the act and kiss each other senseless.

Yes, Abhay had been similar to Julian when he’d started his downward spiral. Both of them had taken part in and enjoyed every debauchery possible, but it hadn’t taken Abhay long to figure out that all the notches in his bed post meant nothing. He didn’t have that one person with whom he could share his life, his heart. Julian had eventually found Sia, right when he had been at his lowest. It left Abhay thinking when he was going to find his one and only.

And the only person he could think about was Selena.

“How much longer?” Selena asked impatiently from the door.

“Fifty-nine percent,” Abhay answered as he checked the progress in his laptop. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Selena raised an eyebrow at Abhay, but for once, did as he said and took a seat by the door. They had already knocked out the guard in charge of the control room, so they still had time before anyone figured out what they were actually doing.

“You look bored,” Abhay said conversationally. “Any hot dates waiting for you?”

“Not today.” Selena shook her head at Abhay. “But Ricky has asked me to visit his parents with him tomorrow.”

An uneasy feeling settled in Abhay’s stomach as he thought about Selena going to “meet the parents” with this guy Ricky. He had no idea that things were getting this serious between Selena and her newest conquest. And why hadn’t he known that Selena had been going out with that guy?

“Ricky? As in the new recruit, Rick Verma?” Abhay asked in surprise. “How long have you guys been going out for?”

“Not long.” Selena shrugged. “We’ve been to four or five dates. Ricky is a really nice guy.”

Abhay just realized he had a newfound hatred for Ricky. When I get back to base, I’ll have to make sure that tomorrow’s date never happens, he thought to himself. Ricky just might find himself in a very difficult mission in Alaska very soon.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Selena narrowed her eyes at Abhay. She’s seen that look before, and she did not like it one bit.

“Don’t what?” Abhay asked, showing her his most innocent, angelic smile.

“You’re planning on sabotaging my date! I know that look, Abhay. Every time you have it, my relationships always get ruined!” she accused him, head-on.

“What’s the point with meeting the guy’s parents when it’ll just give them false hope?” Abhay argued. “Besides, we both know it’s nothing serious!”

“My God! Are you even listening to yourself?” Selena snapped back. “Where on earth did you get the idea that I don’t want a serious relationship?”

“Well, you’ve been dating men left and right ever since you joined Turner Security!” Abhay told her. “And now suddenly you want to meet Rick’s parents! After five dates? Since when have you ever been to five dates with the same guy?”

“Since Rick Verma!” Selena snapped. “I’ve been dating left and right because I had been searching for the perfect man.”

“And you think Rick Verma is the perfect guy?”

“Yes!”

Abhay was stunned into silence at Selena’s revelation. How come he’d wasted so much time thinking that he’d eventually end up with Selena, only to have her find someone else that she thinks is the “one” for her? If this kept up, she’d soon be married, and he’d be the sad, moping loner on the first row, watching her take her vows and not being able to do anything about it.

Or maybe he wasn’t all that late yet.

“He isn’t,” Abhay told her finally, mustering all the courage he had.

“What?” Selena looked at him with a frown.

“Rick Verma isn’t the one for you,” Abhay clarified.

“And why is that?” Selena asked with raised eyebrows.

“Because I’m the perfect man for you. And you know it.”

“They must be around here! Find them!” came a sudden chorus of voices from ‘round the corner as the security team from the Annex Building came bounding up the stairs.

“Shit! They found us! Hurry!” Selena snapped as she sprang into action, barring the door with all her might.

“Ninety-eight… ninety-nine percent… Come on! Done! Yes! Let’s go!” Abhay took out the pen drive from the main computer and packed up his laptop, storing the pen drive safely away inside his jacket pocket. He then switched a couple wires on the circuit board, then shut the door behind it and locked it with the same password he’d hacked to get in.

“We can’t use the door. They’re in the hallway,” Selena said to Abhay then turned to the Bluetooth device she had in her ears and asked, “Do we take them down?”

“Negative. Get out through the window. You have backup,” came the voice of Turner Security Agency’s CEO, Julian Turner.

“Copy that.” Pressing the button to disconnect the call, she took out special gloves from her bag and handed a pair to Abhay. Then she grabbed hold of the laptop bag and Abhay’s arm. “We’re getting out through the window. Keep quiet.”

And then, without giving him any prior warning, she opened the window at the end of the room and threw the bag out.

“Holy mother of—what the hell did you do that for?!” Abhay asked, astounded.

“Shut up. It’s our turn next,” she said sternly and then went back to the door and unlocked it without a sound. She could hear their voices right outside the door. They’d be here within a couple of minutes, and they’ll find not a single thing out of place. Not even a trace of the retrieval of data.

Without another glance, she ran towards Abhay at full speed and pushed both of them out the sliding window. Both of them quickly grabbed the thick tensile wire hanging off from a magnet on top of the roof. Julian had been right, they did have backup, and, if her guess was right, it must be one of the new recruits, Joshua, Ricky’s best friend.

Hands covered with thick leather gloves, they slid down six floors of the building with ease, landing on the alleyway. Selena pressed a button on her watch that disabled the magnet, removing the long rope in its hold and letting it fall to the ground. It was a most impressive innovation, made by Abhay himself.

“Where the hell is my laptop? That is, if any of it even survived,” Abhay asked Selena ruefully, as she folded the wire into a neat loop and tucked it on the belt of her waist.

“Looking for this?”

They both turned to find a sleek black car at the end of the alleyway. From the driver’s side window leaned out a boy with silver hair and violet eyes, the laptop bag in hand.

“Leo!” they said in unison. Everyone was already accustomed to the child who was now legally their boss’s son.

“Hop in. We need to get out before someone peeps out the window,” Leo told them.

“Copy that.” No sooner had the both of them got in and shut the door than Leo started to drive. “Do you even have a license?” Selena asked the boy.

Leo was now almost always at the Turner Security headquarters. He’d taken to Julian as if he was his biological father, and Selena was glad that the kid now had someone to look up to. In a way, even Julian became a better man because of Leo and his mother. Not to mention the child that was on the way, Julian’s own flesh and blood.

“Got it last month. Aced that test like a pro.” Leo smirked.

“That’s because you learned from a pro,” Abhay said matter-of-factly, raising the collar of his jacket, to which Selena just shook her head.

But inside, Abhay’s last words kept eating at her.

Because I’m the perfect man for you and you know it.

Maybe a part of her had known that she and Abhay would be the perfect pair, but was that really what she wanted? She had been manipulated to take part in these games that Abhay had been playing for a long time now, and she’d just recently gotten out of that spiral.

Ricky was a good man. He had a good heart, and he was good for her. Selena didn’t want to fall back into Abhay’s charismatic little trap. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but want to take this leap of faith. This was the first time that Abhay had shown any interest in her at all.

Reaching the company HQ, Abhay handed over the pen drive to Julian.

“Were you spotted?” was the first thing Julian asked.

“Nope. They had a hunch, but they didn’t see us. Saved his ass in the process. As usual,” Selena answered for Abhay.

“Darling, you love that ass.” Abhay winked at a blushing Selena. Julian looked at them with one eyebrow raised in question.

“What I’d love right now is to go home, take a long shower then a long nap. See you later boys!” Selena told the duo before she went out the room, waving goodbye over her shoulders.

“So?” Julian asked Abhay once he was sure they were both alone.

“So what?” Abhay asked innocently.

“Cut the crap, Beelzi.” Julian sighed. “You’re not going after Selena. She’s my friend, and she deserves better.”

“I’m not going after her for fun, Julian.” Abhay sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew why Julian was concerned, but he was serious about Selena.

“So, this is serious?” Julian asked, more than a little surprised.

“It’s always been serious with her,” Abhay told Julian. “I’d just been too cocky to think that we’d just end up together naturally, but I think that might not happen.”

“Dude, when are you going to tell her that?” Julian snapped. “When she’s happily married and pregnant with someone else’s baby? Don’t just stand there. Go after her!”

“Right now?” Abhay asked, looking hopefully towards the door.

“Yes, you idiot! Get going!” Julian gave him a push towards the door, and that was all the encouragement he needed to start bounding after Selena. Luckily, he caught her just before she was about to exit the building.

“Selena, wait!” He caught her hand before she could get out.

“What now?” Selena asked wearily.

“I meant what I said back then,” he told her. “About me being the perfect guy for you.”

“Abhay—”

“Just hear me out, please?” He begged. “I know I haven’t been the best role model when it comes to being a boyfriend, and I know I’ve given you a thousand reasons to doubt me, but all I want is just one chance. Give me one chance to prove myself to you. I’ll become everything that you’ve been looking for, I promise you that. Just don’t go to meet Ricky’s parents yet.”

Selena gave it a thought. Maybe, just maybe, Abhay could change.

“One shot. That’s all you’ve got.”

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