A/N: Thank you for your wonderful response to the prologue and your comments and likes. Your encouragement has spurred me to write this rather long (for me) chapter this quick. This chapter is deliberately vague in places, but hopefully that'll add to your reading pleasure later.
Meanwhile Enjoy!
Chapter 1
The insistent buzz of her cellphone jerked Ananya out of a deep sleep.
"Huh..Hello..."
Her fingers fumbled for the switch on her bedside lamp, and a moment later for her specs.
"Yes, Tinu...one sec..."
Her voice growing sharper with every word, Ananya scrabbled for the notepad on her bedside table. Then wedged her mobile between shoulder and ear, uncapped a ballpoint and held it poised over the notepad.
"Ok tell..."
She'd been waiting for this call from her stringer cum informant ever since the story of their sacking had flown over the wires just hours earlier.
"He has, has he?...You're sure...?"
She made a note, pausing to process the answers, then made another, then thanked him, rattled off a few instructions and ended the call.
And then promptly dialled Kabir.
He picked up on the first ring just as though he'd been waiting for her phone call, which, Ananya realised, he probably had.
"Miss Kashyap...?"
Her name on his tongue never failed to send the butterflies fluttering in her stomach and a fuzzy warmth spreading through all of her, and... But this was not the time for distraction, so reluctantly she turned her attention to the task at hand.
"Sir I've just heard from...
"Excellent Miss Kashyap..." He cut her off, the disinterest in his voice at odds with his words. "I've received a few calls myself...so many people wanting to know the whys and wherefores...you know how it is - today's hot news, forgotten if not tomorrow then in a few days. Same old, same old ...Thank heavens at least now I have time for a break, and so do you. "
Where was he going with this, Ananya wondered. He sounded positively weary and disenchanted but he'd been so gung-ho just hours earlier in Khalid's office.
"...focus on health and fitness..."
He was droning on, when she'd already grasped the fact that he thought their phones might've been tapped and didn't want them to reveal anything important. She opened her mouth to interrupt, when something he said edged into her consciousness.
"...Why don't I pick you up in the morning and we can grab a coffee after our run?"
"Sir?"
"Run, Miss Kashyap, I said run. In the morning. Fresh air. Health. Fitness...you know. Although you might prefer to jog...or walk, you did say you wanted to drop a few kilos didn't you?"
Was he...? He was laughing at her.
"A run's perfect!" The words were out before she could help herself and showed no signs of stopping, "But I should tell you I'm a gold-medalist in track. So I'll understand if you want to reconsider the run."
"Gold-medalist?"
Ananya didn't know what rankled more: his open disbelief or the unconcealed hilarity. But before she could crush him with her retort he accepted her challenge.
"Right then, I'll pick you up at 7:30?"
She groaned silently at the early hour, but there could be no backing down now, so she consented and hung up not deigning to retort to his parting shot:
"You do have walking uhrm running shoes don't you?"
It had been a deliberate attempt to dispel the tension, to take her mind off the many uncertainties that loomed just ahead, but now adrenaline coursed through her. She'd never felt less like sleeping. Ananya sat up in bed staring into the darkness just beyond the fringes of the lamplight. The minute hand on the old-fashioned dial of her bedside clock crept towards 2:00 am, and then towards 2:30 am but Ananya was frozen in place except for her eyes, which flitted restlessly from point to point in her room.
Finally, with a sigh, she switched off the lamp, tugged the covers up, buried her face in the softness of her pillow, and tried to blank her mind of all but the fast-approaching run with Kabir.
xxx
Sleep also eluded Kirit Singhania, despite the expert and prolonged ministrations of his favourite 'attendant', a Russian dancer looking for a break in modelling or movies, whose looks and energy he had channelled into po*nographic movies.
The news was not good.
Kabir Sharma and Ananya Kashyap had been fired for unprofessional conduct - KKN was shouting that from the rooftops anyway, but unprofessional in what way? He'd asked the Editor in Chief of his news channel, News Round The Clock, to ask around in KKN for the real story. The initial report was just so much white noise. Nobody was talking. Everybody was talking. Nobody at KKN seemed to know for sure, but everybody had an opinion.
The rumour mills were abuzz with so many contradictory rumours that he didn't know what to believe. There were rumours of a Kabir-Ananya fling during the hostage drama that had gone sour quickly and was affecting their work so that they had both been kicked out; rumours of a love triangle with Malvika that had earned her fury resulting in the double expulsion; rumours of Kabir and Ananya demanding a raise and walking out when their demands were not met; rumours of a merger with a foreign news channel resulting in Kabir's ex-wife now running the show, and so of course Kabir had walked taking Ananya with him; and rumours of Kabir and Ananya working on a big story, an expose that could topple the government, and having got the proof, of them refusing to share it with KKN, but holding on to sell it to the highest bidder...or worse.
Kirit didn't give a damn for any but the last rumour, and not even that would have disturbed him (because, heck, there were hundreds of scams sprouting like toadstools all over the place, and the duo could expose them all with his blessings) had it not been for the news his informant Govind had phoned in just now.
Of all the recent stories Kabir and Ananya had covered, it turned out that the one that they'd been working on just before they'd been dismissed was the story of the model-turned crack-head, Mahi. At least that's what the word on the street was. And Kirit saw no reason to doubt the word on the street, especially not when it was garnered by Govind. Still, even that was not all bad - there were so many angles to drugs and prostitution that a news channel could live off just those two topics for years.
But there was something about the timing of this - what with the event almost on them. And then there was Badshah, Mahi's drug-supplier cum pimp busted by Kabir and Ananya doing time in Tihar and therefore accessible to the KKN pair. Had Badshah been arrested before the deal was struck? He couldn't remember. But then if he'd known anything, he'd have squealed by now.
Loose ends. One too many this time. He should have had Badshah killed long back, Kirit brooded, running his fingers through his thick hair in which the salt now completely overwhelmed the pepper. Maybe he should have them all killed - in different, painful ways.
With that pleasurable thought to mull over Kirit sloshed three fingers of an aged single malt into a crystal glass and settled down for the night.
xxx
The duel was completely one-sided. But then, Kabir had chosen the weapon. She'd managed to run just one lap of the football field in the park he'd driven them to. She'd worked up to it by walk-jogging the first couple of laps - after all a body needed to warm up before breaking into a sprint. But then that delectable mouth had curved into a knowing smile, and his eyes had crinkled at the corners, and she'd had no option but to break into the run with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
Except that it hadn't worked. She'd been puffing after one length, very loudly and painfully after the other side and had slowed into a walk-jog by the time she'd finished.
"Gold medallist did you say?"
He flashed another devastating grin at her, barely out of breath, the muscles in his broad back rippling as he powered on past her on yet another lap.
She didn't bother to reply. It wasn't possible to in her position: doubled over, ostensibly to re-velcro her shoe straps, but actually to catch her breath, which was coming out in loud pants that she could do absolutely nothing to muffle. Thankfully, he was out of hearing range.
Her eyes lingered on his lithe form as he approached yet again. Strange that she'd never realised how toned and muscled and strong he was. Well she'd felt his strength when he'd carried her in his arms while they were escaping from Madhaonath and she'd twisted her ankle. But she hadn't seen the very pleasant evidence of it as she was now finally thanks to his shorts and tight Tee damp now between the pecs and clinging. More than pleasant - delicious!
He came to a halt before her and she dragged her eyes back to his face.
"You should cool down Miss Kashyap."
Her eyes jerked to his as she put all her effort into fighting down the blush - had he caught her ogling him?
"Didn't your 'gold-medallist in track' trainer tell you that you could harm yourself if you don't cool down after a run?"
He zipped up his jacket and started on his stretches.
Oh that! The relief that she hadn't been rumbled made her flash an extra bright smile at him.
"I was too - gold medallist in fifth grade."
"Uh," he seemed dazed, but recovered before she could comment on it. "Let's do the stretches, Miss Kashyap, and get that coffee."
xxx
There was no trace of levity in their chat over coffee. The run and the banter might never have been. They nursed their warm take-away cups, bought from the coffee chain near the park, as they walked back to Kabir's car.
"Kirit's taken the bait." Kabir's eyes over the rim of his coffee cup lit up with that familiar mix of triumph and excitement that she knew glowed in hers as well.
"Khalid called last night. Kirit's news editor rang up to find out about us and our sudden exit. Khalid gave him the spiel he'd prepared about our unprofessionalism, and let drop that we were working on a new angle to the Mahi story that we'd told him we'd dropped because the leads came to nothing but that he suspected we'd stumbled onto something big and were trying to sell it to another channel or someone with that kind of money. So he threatened to sack us if we didn't give him the story, and has now made good on the threat."
Kabir paused to take a sip.
"So Kirit knows now or at least guesses that we're nosing about in his backyard."
"Yes, he knows." Ananya interjected. "Tinu rang last night to tell me that one of his men has been asking a couple of Badshah's gang if we'd been around and they told him that we had, but that they hadn't talked or helped us."
There was a moment's silence as they digested the development.
"He'll go for Badshah next." Ananya set down her half-full cup on the bonnet.
"Yes. But he won't find him. Khurana has moved him to a safe house in some secret location until the event is over."
"One week. We have a week to nab him."
"Doubts Miss Kashyap?" The raised eyebrow was eloquent.
"Never. Just confirming the deadline." Ananya raised her chin and levelled a stony look at Kabir defying him to find even a trace of uncertainty in her eyes.
His cool brown eyes scanned hers, searching for some sign, diving deep, inviting her in, until the stone crumbled and their eyes softened and warmed and widened and lingered still...
"That's good Miss Kashyap." Kabir's voice was a murmur, his eyes still caught and held by hers, "because when he doesn't find Badshah, he'll come after us."
Ends
A/N So how was it. I look forward to your feedback. Please let me know which bits work for you. And yes, please be generous with your likes and comments - after all this is hard work. 😃
Edited by tvbug2011 - 10 years ago
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