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He bent over, put his hands on his knees, and took several slow breaths. His hands shook as dizziness and nausea rose in a wave, and the walls closed in on him. Two thousand square feet of living space and it was suffocating.
Good job there wasn’t much furniture to trip over while he paced. Even though he’d been out of college for almost a decade, he’d furnished the place in student chic—TV, sofa, bed, stocked fridge and a shit-ton of computer equipment. There was nothing else except a vast expanse of marble tiling and white walls. And a view over Montreal’s Mount Royal. Yeah, he’d bought a condo in the middle of the Golden Square Mile. Because he didn’t know what else to do with his money, and a multi-million-dollar pad had seemed like a good idea at the time. He was pathetic. And he hated his condo.
He hated his life.
He hated himself.
Why couldn’t he just be normal? But no, he had to have a giant brain and a deep fear of other human beings. Unless he was online. Which was how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place—he’d hired a virtual girlfriend to keep him company and make him feel normal. But then he’d thought himself in love and had flown to Scotland, dressed as a Wookiee—not his finest moment—to meet his virtual girlfriend, Mairi, in real life and win her hand in marriage. Of course, she hadn’t wanted him or any of the other sad geeks who’d turned up. But pity had made her offer to find him the perfect match. And his love for Mairi had meant he let her.
Which had led to this moment. Forty-five minutes until he was due downstairs to meet his blind date in the hotel bar. Now, he was just going to text Mairi.
And hide.
For the rest of his life.
His doorbell rang, ruining that plan. There were only three people his doorman let up to his apartment: his parents and his best friend, Sebastian. He knew which one was at his door. And he wouldn’t go away until Jonas let him in.
With a sigh, he threw the door open for his friend. Sebastian stood there, on the phone, glaring up at Jonas while he talked.
“You were right,” he said. “He’s freaking out. Here.” He thrust the phone into Jonas’ hand.
With a sinking heart, he took it, knowing full well who was on the other end. “I can’t do it,” he said as soon as it reached his ear.
“Yes. You can.” Mairi’s Scottish accent filled his head. “And you will. Or I will get on a plane, come over there to Canada, and beat you to within an inch of your life.”
“Rusty,” Mairi’s fiancé, Keir, called in the background. “We talked about how you treat your clients. That isn’t the way.”
“Jonas isn’t a client,” Mairi snapped. “He’s Jonas. Now butt out. Do I tell you how to fix cars? No, I don’t. So don’t tell me how to fix my geeks.”
It was probably all kinds of weird that Jonas felt warm inside being called one of Mairi’s geeks, but he did.
“Right,” she said, all business now she’d dealt with Keir. “You’ve talked to Sadie online. You’ve exchanged photos—without the Wookiee head, thank goodness. You know this woman. It’s not like you’re meeting a stranger. It will be fine.”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “No, it won’t. I can’t do it.”
“Dude,” Sebastian shouted. “Man up.”
Jonas flipped him the bird. Sebastian just grinned then turned to raid his fridge.
“Jonas William Tremblay, you will get yourself downstairs and spend at least half an hour face to face with Sadie Carlyle. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you. How can I not when you’re shouting in my ear? You’re also in Scotland, so your threat doesn’t hold water.”
“Really? You think I can’t carry out a threat from a few million—”
“Thousand,” Jonas said.
“Thousand,” Mairi corrected without missing a beat, “miles away?”
“Don’t risk it,” Keir called in the background. “She’ll totally keep her word and screw with your life.”
“Tell Keir I have no life for you to screw with,” Jonas said.
“You would do if you’d just get your backside down to the hotel restaurant. We picked this location to help make you feel comfortable. You live in the damn hotel. You know the restaurant. If the date goes sideways, you can get in the lift and go back upstairs.”
“I don’t live in the hotel. I bought one of the hotel’s residencies added on to the original building. Technically, I live hotel adjacent.”
