A Lab Rat’s Guide to Fated Love by Aridam S. Dojie

In another life, he promised to love her first, and she promised to keep him safe. Now, she wants nothing to do with love, and he doesn’t want to be saved. Fate, however, has other plans.

Vir Varma wants to die in peace. Rot away alone, on a warm, sunny beach. No more medical procedures and no more feeling his family’s anguish play-by-play while they grieve his impending demise—all thanks to his awful heightened sensitivity to others’ emotions. But when his stubborn brother’s meddling lands him into an experimental program, bringing him face-to-face with Dr. Nori Arya, a nano-biotechnology scientist, her uncanny resemblance to the woman haunting his dreams has Vir questioning his sanity. He’s drawn to her with an irrefutable need to be in her periphery, without reason or logic, and despite the obvious repulsion he senses underneath her stoney façade. A façade that also hides a certain darkness, tucked away in a corner Vir can’t reach. But one he must reach.

Now that Nori finally has her first human subject, her rivals refuse to sit back and watch. Their attempts at sabotage threaten both Vir’s life and Nori’s career, compelling her to sneak him away to her grandma’s old cottage in the hills. Only, she isn’t prepared for the complication that is Vir’s ability to see right through her. Or her own embarrassing reactions to his proximity, and the way his presence calms her nerves and stirs things in her she never thought she could feel again. Things she must not feel again.

Because when love becomes a minefield of consequences and the cost of holding on gets too high, they must choose what they’re willing to give up first—his sanity or her life.