Forever Dublin (Forever #2)

by Brittney Sahin

  Forever Dublin

  By: Brittney Sahin

  Published by: EmKo Media, LLC

  Copyright © 2016 EmKo Media, LLC

  This book is an original publication of Brittney Sahin.

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting EmKoMedia@gmail.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Editor: Sarah Norton, Chief Editor, WordsRU.com

  Designer: Eren Telimen

  Cover Design: Ebooklaunch.com

  Images: Shutterstock

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN-13: 9780997842135

  Sign up to receive exclusive excerpts and bonus material for my novels, as well as take part in great giveaways. Get alerted when my books are released at a special limited time sale price. Visit: Brittneysahin.com

  Hidden Truths Books

  Silenced Memories

  Innocence & Betrayal

  Buried Lies

  Deadly Consequences (March 2017)

  Forever Series

  Forever Rome

  Forever Dublin

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Forever Rome

  Connect with Brittney Sahin

  One

  Adam

  “Get up! Get up!” Chants echoed through the musty room. People were packed up against each other, huddling as close to the fight as they could get.

  “Don’t do it, you bloody idiot. Stay the hell down,” I muttered under my breath. I gripped the cage, pressing my face up close, ignoring the swarm of people who jostled and bumped behind me.

  “Shit. Is that you?” A throaty voice cracked loud in my ear.

  I didn’t bother to look over my shoulder as the bloke screamed, “Adam!” The last thing I wanted was to be recognized. I shouldn’t even have come here.

  My fingers curled tighter around the metal, and I shook the cage. Feck. Come on, stay down, man.

  The other fighter raised his arms up, showing his inked biceps as he paced around the cage, circling his opponent—Les—my idiot friend. The man’s dark eyes were sharp on Les, who remained face down on hands and knees, blood dripping to the ground beneath him.

  The bastard wanted him to get back up, didn’t he? That was why he wasn’t crushing my friend to the floor right now. He didn’t want to end it right then and there—no, he wanted more.

  Frankie “The Beast” Donahue wanted to kill him.

  Jesus, Les. Don’t do it.

  But Les was stubborn, damn it. He pressed a palm to the ground and pushed up, his one good eye open, finding me. His cheek was swollen and busted beneath his eye, blood oozing from the wound and into the crater of his split lip.

  “No!” I shouted as Les tipped his head, almost as if in apology to me, and then pushed upright and to his feet.

  I released my grip, my hands snapping into fists, my knuckles twitching. “Stop it! Stop the fight!” I looked over at the ref, but he didn’t even blink. Instead, he remained in the corner, observing as Frankie closed in on Les, his lips spreading into a disgusting grin.

  I lunged up, attempting to climb the cage as Frankie moved in fast with a hook to Les’s jaw, followed by a quick kick to the shin. Les’s face jerked left and his mouth guard popped free, shooting across the Octagon, then his cheek connected hard against the ground.

  “Les!” I finished climbing the frame of the cage and swung my leg over the top, not giving a damn if anyone wanted to stop me. Hell, let them. I was tense and wired, ready to kill someone.

  “Les?” I dropped down into the cage, my eyes on Frankie’s as he lifted his chin and smiled.

  I shifted my attention back on Les and checked his pulse. There was a faint tick. “Get a fucking doctor,” I shouted over the drunken cheers as the crowd celebrated this arsehole’s win. “Stay with me, man.”

  I wasn’t sure if Les could hear me.

  “Don’t feckin’ die.” I lowered my head, memories from my past ripping me apart. Being here was too Goddamn much.

  I wanted to claw at my flesh and scream. Les should never have stepped inside the ring.

  “We can’t let the medics come here—you know that. You should take him to the hospital.” The ref squatted next to me and stared at Les.

  “You should have stopped the fight.” I shook my head in revulsion, unable to even look at him.

  “And you know the rules,” the ref responded dryly. I had to fight the urge to slug him.

  But he was right.

  This wasn’t an official arena. It wasn’t the UFC. It was an illegal, underground, street fighting ring. And people had bets riding on each damn fight.

  “Help me get Les to my car.”

  The ref nodded and positioned himself at Les’s legs, while I grabbed his shoulders. Together, we lifted him up.

  “He’s a wanker—shouldn’t have been in the Octagon with me. A pussy like him belongs fighting the women.” Frankie’s voice cried loud over my shoulder as we started for the exit, the weight of Les’s eighty-five kilos making it damn hard to walk.

  My gaze snapped up to meet Frankie’s eyes, my body stiff and ready to explode. Hell, just being here had me hanging on the edge—a sharp, dangerous fecking edge. The kind that could kill you.

  “Wait! Adam? Is that you?” Frankie’s brown eyes narrowed at me in recognition. He raised his hands in the air and flicked his fingers toward his face. “Come on, man. You wanna fight me?” He cocked his head and cracked his neck on each side.

  I did my best to ignore the hot wave of anger that tore through me as the ref and I lugged Les down the first of three steps leading to the main floor. I hoped the crowd would get the hell out of our way, but suddenly they began to surge forward.

  “Fight,” someone urged. Then, everyone took up the cry. “Fight. Fight. Fight!”

  Frankie opened his arms to the crowd. “He’s too much of a coward.” He shook his head, and I bit my lip, practically drawing blood.

  I walked backward down the last step, moving with my back to the crowd as people shoved and bumped from all around.

  My shirt had Les’s blood on it, and my hands were slippery. I repositioned my elbows under his armpits and shot one last look at Frankie, imprinting in my mind the smug look on his face.

  Two

  Anna

  “Your fingers are gonna go purple if you stay out here much longer.”
<
br />   I looked over at the profile of the woman at my side. With her head tipped back, she stared up at the red brick building before us. She had to be seventy, or maybe even older. Her cream colored skin was lined with age, her hair a grayish white. But when she turned toward me, I could see a vibrant spirit in her green eyes.

  “You nervous about something?” Her thin, pink lips twitched as if my state of panic had amused her.

  I tried not to crack a smile at the sound of her voice. I had only been in Ireland for two hours, and I was already in love with the accent. And, in fact, everything else about the country, as well. As the taxi had taken me from the airport to my new home, the bold colors of Dublin had flashed by my window. The sun had slipped behind the city buildings and tiny sparks of excitement had ignited in my core.

  But here I stood outside my new apartment, terrified, my suitcase handle clutched tightly in my hand.

  “I haven’t met my roommate,” I explained. “We’ve only exchanged a few emails, and so I’m kind of nervous.” I swallowed and looked up at the five-story building.

  “Ah. An American?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long are you living here?”

  “Just three months.”

  “Well, I’m Elizabeth. My friends call me Lizzy, and I live on the first floor. If you need anything while you’re here, be sure to knock on my door. Flat ten.”

  I looked back over at Lizzy. Warmth, home, and comfort flooded my insides at the whiff of sugar and flour that drifted toward me as she held out her hand.

  “Thank you so much. I’m Anna.” I unfastened my death-grip from the luggage handle and shook her slightly cold, somewhat bony fingers.

  “Pleasure to meet ya,” she said before winking and heading up the short flight of stairs to the entrance of the building. “You coming?” She looked over her shoulder at me. “You can’t get in without a code. The apartments all have a code, as well, in case you don’t have a key on hand. At my age, I have forgotten my key on occasion.” She scratched her cheek, and her eyes glinted. “Hopefully someday I don’t forget the code, or I’ll be screwed.”

  I smiled at her, trying to imagine my grandmother using the word “screwed.”

  “Thankfully, my new roommate already emailed me both codes. It’s the kind of trust I’m used to in Kentucky, although I didn’t expect it in the big city.”

  She waved a hand my way. “The city might be a big one, but our hearts are even bigger.” She winked at me. “Goodnight, Anna.”

  Once Lizzy was out of sight, I closed my eyes. I can do this, I reminded myself. I had twelve weeks to prove to myself that I wasn’t just a country girl—I needed to find myself again. The girl I once was, or maybe always wanted to be.

  But as much as I wanted to get away from Kentucky, it was also twelve weeks away from Java, my Rocky Gelding. I wondered how she was. Maybe I’d be able to find a place to ride once or twice while I was here.

  My eyes flashed open as a bus honked, and my shoulders shrank forward when sirens sounded nearby. Strangers found my eyes as they passed by me on the street, having to move around where I stood.

  What was I doing?

  It was getting cold and growing dark, and I was standing there like a statue.

  I shivered from the slight dampness in the air and rolled my suitcase to the steps and hoisted the heavy bag.

  My new rental was on the third floor. I rolled my eyes at the spiraling set of stairs and searched for an elevator.

  Once on my floor, I found myself in front of my new home.

  The door was brown and plain—nothing terribly exciting. I had seen a few pictures from the Internet, but I wasn’t sure if I was truly prepared to go from wide open spaces to eight hundred square feet—or whatever that was in meters.

  My hand hovered before the small box outside the door, near the knob. My fingers trembled with nervous anticipation as I blew out a breath and tapped at the eight-digit code. I had recited the code in my head on the flight over—my first ever plane ride—probably seeming like some crazy person, chanting to herself. Of course, in this day and age, a twenty-four-year-old who had never flown before was an oddity in itself.

  I sighed as I dropped my bag just inside the front door and fumbled for the light switch in the dark, wondering why a place with high-tech code locks didn’t have automatic lights or motion sensors. “There you are.” I flicked on the light and found myself in the kitchen. Well, the three square feet I stood in probably counted as the “entryway,” but the refrigerator was directly to my left, and there wasn’t much but a wall to the right.

  Shutting the door, I unwrapped the blue scarf from around my neck and let it hang loose down the front of my sweater. I moved deeper into the apartment, past the breakfast bar, which seemed like the closest thing to a table.

  There was a brown leather chair, a black suede couch, and a large, flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. No pictures. No lamps. No rugs.

  I’d been fortunate to find someone who would allow me to bunk with her for those three months at such a low rate. The internship barely paid, although I was lucky to get anything. Most of the other internships I had applied to were unpaid.

  I shook off the weird bachelor pad vibe I was getting and glanced down the hall. My new roommate had told me in her email that my room would be the first door on the right. My hand shook a little as I gripped the brass handle and pushed.

  The room was small, like the rest of the apartment. There was a double bed and nightstand. And, hey, a lamp! Nice touch.

  I fought back my sudden urge to wash the plain white linens on the bed. Who knew whom—or what!—they had touched before me. But the weight of my sleepiness was too much. Although it was daytime back home, after being on such a long flight, I was beat.

  I went back out into the hall and found the bathroom, where I peeled off my icky airplane clothes and stepped into the shower. It felt a little awkward to take a shower in someone else’s home without them even being there, but if I was going to go outside the box, then I had to get used to doing new things.

  That was the point of this trip. Well, in part, at least. I also didn’t want to be the girl who’d only scribbled her dreams in a diary and never attempted to live them. Well, sure, I would probably never achieve world peace. And playing opposite of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing was off the table. But at least I was doing this. Coming to Dublin was pretty big, in my book.

  I stepped out of the small, glass framed shower and grabbed one of the drab blue towels from the hook on the back of the door. It smelled like sandalwood and spice. Maybe Leslie had a boyfriend. I probably should have unpacked my towel before deciding to take a shower.

  I quickly patted dry, trying to use as little of the towel as possible, and then tugged on my gray cotton nightshirt, which had, “Horses are Love” scrawled across the front.

  The oval mirror in front of the sink was sweating from the steam, and I swiped at it. My mother’s emerald green eyes stared back at me. For a moment, I wondered if I’d made the wrong decision, leaving Kentucky. I blinked a few times and combed my fingers through my long, strawberry blonde hair—another feature of my mother’s I’d inherited.

  “I can do this.”

  Feeling refreshed—well, at least clean—I gathered my clothes and opened the door.

  In the doorframe, I halted, narrowing my eyes at the figure hugged by shadows at the end of the hall. A scream escaped my lips, and I dropped my clothes from my arms as I backed up. I fell against the bathroom door as my momentum left my feet behind.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  I stumbled, upright, my mind and body prepared for the worst as my hands went tense at my sides. My heart smacked loud in my chest as I stared at the silhouette before me. The shape stepped closer and into the light, and I gulped. “You are not Leslie,” I accused, studying his blue eyes.

  “No.” He paused and his lips gathered into a smile, his bright white teeth a flashing contrast against his tan skin and short, black
hair. “No, I’m not.”

  He took another step forward, which compelled me farther back, but I shook off my fear when I realized he was crouching down. He scooped up my clothes off the shag carpet, and my cheeks flamed red hot. I snatched my plain Jane white cotton bra and panties from him and tucked them away inside my jeans and shirt before pulling everything close in my arms, pressing the bundle to my chest. I didn’t normally wear granny panties, but I hadn’t expected to impress anyone after the long flight.

  Now, of course, I was braless in a nightshirt that went only to my mid thighs.

  “Who are you?” I clutched my clothes like a shield and swallowed again.

  “I was planning on asking you the same question.” He folded his arms and studied me, amusement flickering in the smirk of his cheek.

  The threat of danger seemed minimal, but I couldn’t let my guard down altogether. After all, there was a stranger standing before me who clearly wasn’t my roommate. Just because he had reinvented the meaning of good looking didn’t mean he was no longer an enemy. And sometimes the best looking men were the most dangerous.

  Was I in the wrong apartment? No. I had the code, and it had worked. This man must be a friend of Leslie’s. Or maybe the boyfriend whose smell was on the towel. She probably sent him to make sure I got in okay since she was out of town this weekend. Of course that was the case. I tried to breathe a little easier.

  “I’m Leslie’s new roommate. Are you friends with her?” I stepped out of the bathroom and around him, then quickly flipped on the hall light. I tossed my dirty clothes on the floor of my new bedroom and spun around, finding him only a few inches from me.

  The first thing I noticed was his smell. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever smelled back in Kentucky—jasmine or sage, I wasn’t sure. It was crisp, clean, and smelled expensive.

  “Aye. Leslie and I are mates. You just took me by surprise.”

  I rolled my tongue over my teeth as I tried to gain control of the weird, fluttering sensation in my chest that had begun to travel up, making my throat warm and red.