Be With Me Read online

  Be With Me

  An Adair Family Novel

  Samantha Young

  Be With Me

  An Adair Family Novel

  By Samantha Young

  Copyright © 2022 Samantha Young

  * * *

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the above author of this book.

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

  This work is registered with and protected by Copyright House.

  Cover Design @ By Hang Le

  Couple Photography by Regina Wamba

  Contents

  Also by Samantha Young

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  1. Eredine

  2. Arran

  3. Eredine

  4. Eredine

  5. Eredine

  6. Arran

  7. Eredine

  8. Arran

  9. Arran

  10. Eredine

  11. Arran

  12. Eredine

  13. Eredine

  14. Arran

  15. Eredine

  16. Arran

  17. Eredine

  18. Eredine

  19. Arran

  20. Eredine

  21. Eredine

  22. Arran

  23. Arran

  24. Arran

  25. Eredine

  26. Eredine

  27. Eredine

  28. Arran

  29. Eredine

  30. Arran

  31. Eredine

  32. Arran

  33. Eredine

  34. Arran

  35. Arran

  36. Arran

  37. Eredine

  38. Eredine

  39. Arran

  Epilogue

  Also by Samantha Young

  Adult Contemporary Novels

  by Samantha Young

  Play On

  As Dust Dances

  Black Tangled Heart

  Hold On: A Play On Novella

  Into the Deep

  Out of the Shallows

  Hero

  Villain: A Hero Novella

  One Day: A Valentine Novella

  Fight or Flight

  Much Ado About You

  * * *

  On Dublin Street Series:

  On Dublin Street

  Down London Road

  Before Jamaica Lane

  Fall From India Place

  Echoes of Scotland Street

  Moonlight on Nightingale Way

  Until Fountain Bridge (a novella)

  Castle Hill (a novella)

  Valentine (a novella)

  One King’s Way (a novella)

  On Hart’s Boardwalk (a novella)

  Hart’s Boardwalk Series:

  The One Real Thing

  Every Little Thing

  Things We Never Said

  The Truest Thing

  * * *

  The Adair Family Series:

  Here With Me

  There With You

  Always You

  * * *

  Young Adult contemporary titles by Samantha Young

  The Impossible Vastness of Us

  The Fragile Ordinary

  Other Titles by Samantha Young

  * * *

  Warriors of Ankh Trilogy:

  Blood Will Tell

  Blood Past

  Shades of Blood

  * * *

  Drip Drop Teardrop, a novella

  * * *

  Titles Co-written with Kristen Callihan

  * * *

  Outmatched

  * * *

  Titles Written Under S. Young

  * * *

  Fear of Fire and Shadow

  * * *

  War of the Covens Trilogy:

  Hunted

  Destined

  Ascended

  * * *

  The Seven Kings of Jinn Series:

  Seven Kings of Jinn

  Of Wish and Fury

  Queen of Shadow and Ash

  The Law of Stars and Sultans

  * * *

  True Immortality Series:

  War of Hearts

  Kiss of Vengeance

  Kiss of Eternity: A True Immortality Short Story

  Bound by Forever

  About the Author

  Samantha Young is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author from Stirlingshire, Scotland. She's been nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Author and Best Romance for her international bestseller On Dublin Street. On Dublin Street is Samantha's first adult contemporary romance series and has sold in 31 countries.

  Visit Samantha Young online at http://authorsamanthayoung.com

  Instagram @authorsamanthayoung

  TikTok @authorsamanthayoung

  Facebook http://www.facebook.com/authorsamanthayoung

  * * *

  Want book updates, exclusive excerpts, bonus content and a chance to enter newsletter only giveaways? Join Samantha’s mailing list:

  https://authorsamanthayoung.com/subscribe-to-sams-newsletter/

  Acknowledgments

  For the most part, writing is a solitary endeavor, but publishing most certainly is not. I have to thank Stacie Ervin and Kalie Phillips for reading Eredine’s story before everyone else and providing such amazing insight into her character. I appreciate you guys more than you know. Also, thank you to my lovely friend Catherine Cowles for also reading an early version of Be With Me and providing support throughout the whole writing process. Love you loads!

  Of course I have to thank my amazing editor Jennifer Sommersby Young for always, always being there to help make me a better writer and storyteller. Thank you!

  Thank you to Julie Deaton for proofreading Be With Me and catching all the things. You have an amazing eye for detail and I’m always reassured my stories are going out into the world in the best possible shape.

  And thank you to my bestie and PA extraordinaire Ashleen Walker for handling all the little things and supporting me through everything. I appreciate you so much. And miss and love you loads.

  The life of a writer doesn’t stop with the book. Our job expands beyond the written word to marketing, advertising, graphic design, social media management, and more. Help from those in the know goes a long way. A huge thank-you to Nina Grinstead at Valentine PR for your encouragement, support, insight and advice. You’re invaluable to me and I hope you know how much I cherish you.

  Thank you to every single blogger, Instagrammer, and book lover who has helped spread the word about my books. You all are appreciated so much! On that note, a massive thank-you to the fantastic readers in my private Facebook group, Sam’s Clan McBookish. You’re truly special and the loveliest readers a girl could ask for. Your continued and ceaseless support is awe-inspiring and I’m so grateful for you all.

  A massive thank-you to Hang Le for once again creating a stunning cover that establishes the perfect visual atmosphere for this story and this series. You amaze me! And thank you to Regina Wamba for the beautiful couple photography that brings Eredine and Arran to life.

  As always, thank you to my agent Lauren Abramo for making it possible for readers all over the world to find my words. You’re phenomenal, and I’m so lucky to have you.

  A huge thank-you to my family and friends for always supporting and encoura
ging me, and for listening to me talk, sometimes in circles, about the worlds I live in.

  * * *

  Finally, to you, thank you for reading. It means the everything to me.

  Prologue

  EREDINE

  * * *

  Eight years ago

  * * *

  Los Angeles, California

  United States

  * * *

  Staring at the map of Scotland on the laptop screen, I tried to picture myself in the place labeled Ardnoch, right on the northeastern coastline of the mainland. Having never been there, it wasn’t a simple task.

  “Ardnoch,” I murmured, trying out the sound of it in my mouth.

  So foreign.

  And yet, what Lachlan Adair offered was a life there, not completely unlike the one I lived now. Just safer. Much, much safer.

  You trust him? the voice, a memory, asked in my head.

  Yes. Despite everything I’d been through, I trusted Lachlan Adair. I trusted my gut. If there was something I’d always been able to trust, it was my gut instinct. Granny called it my sixth sense, said I inherited her gift of perceiving a person’s goodness or wickedness. My friends used to say I caught a person’s “vibe” because, eventually, my instincts about someone usually turned out to be true. I’d only been wrong once or twice in my entire life.

  Those people I’d been wrong about had a gift too—they could make you believe in their goodness, so you never saw their wickedness coming.

  It unnerved me to know that my sixth sense didn’t always get it right, but I knew deep in my soul I was right about Lachlan Adair.

  Life was so surreal. One minute, I was hopeless, feeling angry and powerless, and the next, a Hollywood actor, of all people, offered me a chance to start over. It wasn’t like he and the bodyguard who went everywhere with him were my saviors. Nah, screw that. They were just presenting an opportunity. I’d pay them back.

  I’d work my ass off to live life on my own terms again.

  Granny always said there was no shame in taking help when you needed it, as long as you had exhausted all other avenues. Well, I’d exhausted them all.

  This was what I had left. And I hated it. I hated I had to rely on a wealthy man to get me the hell out of Dodge, especially when it was a rich male (he wasn’t a man) who had—

  Furious tears thickened my throat, and I threw the thought of him out of my mind.

  He’d taken too much already.

  I wouldn’t let him turn me into an angry, bitter woman.

  Concentrating on the map, I scrolled over Scotland, taking in the place-names I’d never heard of, some beautiful, some unpronounceable … all thousands of miles away.

  A knock sounded on the door. “It’s Lachlan,” he called out in his lilting brogue.

  “Come in.”

  My pulse picked up as the hotel room door beeped and Lachlan entered with Mac, his bodyguard, at his back. Well, not his bodyguard anymore. Mackennon Galbraith was now the head of security at Ardnoch Estate.

  Lachlan had explained that he’d renovated his family’s castle and estate in the Highlands and turned it into a members-only club for TV and film professionals. It only opened a few weeks ago, and Lachlan was in LA to spread the word among his peers. Our meeting had been by chance, and thank the Lord, because I didn’t know what might have happened if he and Mac hadn’t appeared in my life when they did.

  I didn’t know why Lachlan was so determined to help me, but he offered me a position at his estate. He needed a yoga/Pilates instructor, and I was one.

  Both men wore small smiles as they sat across from me in the hotel suite’s living room. Lachlan hid me here after I’d uncharacteristically blurted my entire story to him. With everything I’d been through, I wanted to fight against my instinct and remind myself that no one was this kind. Yet, that wasn’t true. Granny was. She’d have helped a stranger on the street.

  What other choice did I have? So many had been taken from me.

  Lachlan sighed and leaned forward. “How are you feeling?”

  A little tired of that question. “Okay. What now?”

  “We’re ready to get moving.”

  “Just one last thing,” Mac said, searching my face with a concerned frown. “Name change. You need to do that before we can get you out of here.”

  “Do you have a new name in mind?” Lachlan asked. “Something far removed from your real name or any family member’s name. Something he can’t figure out.”

  Name change.

  My stomach flipped unpleasantly as I stared down at the laptop screen. This was it. I really was rewriting my life. Leaving everything behind. So much pain and grief … but it also meant leaving behind who I’d been before the horror overtook everything. And I’d liked that girl. She had a good life.

  Tears stung my eyes and nose as a pretty-looking place-name caught my attention on the map. I turned the laptop and pointed to it. “How do you pronounce this?”

  Lachlan leaned forward to peer at it. “Eredine? It’s pronounced Ery-Deen.”

  My lips twitched. He pronounced it differently from how it looked, but I liked it. Weirdly, somehow, it fit. “That’ll do.”

  “It’s bonny.” Mac gave me a sympathetic smile.

  “Surname?”

  “Willows,” I said without thinking. The Wind in the Willows had been one of Granny’s favorite children’s books. “Eredine Willows.”

  “It’s perfect.” Lachlan stood up. “We’ll get you out of here … Eredine.”

  Eredine.

  So strange.

  So foreign.

  I tried to pull the name on like a sweater. Make it fit. Sighing past the tightness in my chest, I stood too. “I’m going to pay you back.”

  “I don’t want that.”

  “I do.” I lifted my chin stubbornly. “I have my granny’s house I can sell. If you help me sell it, I can use the money from that to pay you back for this. I need to. And I’m not asking.”

  Everyone thought because I was soft spoken and reserved that I was a pushover. They soon found out they were wrong.

  Lachlan’s eyes sparked with understanding. “Okay.”

  “Okay, then.” My hands shook as I reached to close the laptop. “When do we leave?”

  1

  Eredine

  Present day

  * * *

  Sutherland

  Scottish Highlands

  * * *

  I moved to close the bedroom door when Lewis called out sleepily, “Light!”

  “I got you, buddy,” I answered softly, pulling the door almost shut. A crack of light from the hallway filtered into Lewis’s bedroom. Having already put a sleeping Eilidh to bed, I made my way quietly downstairs to Thane’s open-plan living room and kitchen.

  It had been a good night with the kids. Since it was New Year’s Eve, I let them stay up a little later, but I could tell by ten they were fighting sleep. We were watching our second Disney movie of the night when Eilidh fell asleep on the couch and Lewis drowsily agreed that it was time for bed.

  The wall clock above the dining table said it was just past eleven. I grabbed a drink from the fridge and settled into Thane’s massive sectional to watch the New Year’s Eve shows broadcasting from Edinburgh and Glasgow.

  Memories of New Year’s parties in LA prodded at me, but I shook them off, and the accompanying dread, and tried to concentrate on what the Scots called “Hogmanay” celebrations. The TV flickered in the room’s dim light, the images flashing in a blur. The volume was low so as not to wake the kids, and my ears pricked up at a noise from the laundry room.

  It sounded as if the laundry outer door had just opened and closed.

  Pulse pounding in my ears, I swiped the heavy paperweight from the coffee table and crept toward the laundry room. I couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing in my ears.

  Maybe it was Regan?

  But why would it be? She’d left now that she and Thane were no longer seeing each other.

>   I wanted to speak, call out hello, but fear closed my throat.

  Determined, I stepped into the doorway of the laundry and slammed my hand down over the light switch.

  The long, narrow room illuminated, but there was no one, nothing. The outer door sat closed, untouched.

  My pulse slowed.

  So I was jumpy these days. What was new?

  Shaking my head at myself, I placed the paperweight back on the coffee table and retrieved another drink from the kitchen.

  I heard it too late.

  As I was crossing to the couch, the floorboards creaked at my back. My heart leapt into my throat as I spun around.