We Were One Once Book 1 (12 page)

Closing the door on my
bedroom softly, I realize my hands are fists. The muscles
comprising my arms, shoulders, back are knotted and aching again. I
crack my neck side to side, trying to remove the yoke of tension
once more. My body has been on edge, a bundle of pent-up nervous
energy. It’s like I’ve stored up all my needs, worries, and
anxieties over the last three years in every nerve
ending.

It’s no use though. I won’t
relax with the images I now have in my head.

Gillian is living with a
man.
My
Gillian
shacked up with some scum of the earth, new moneyed… I breathe. “It
won’t do any good to go down this path again, Miles.” I say these
words out loud, talking myself out of the heated words I feel on my
tongue.

I adopt the soothing tone my
mother used when I was a child. Even though I haven’t talked
to
her
in years,
cutting off all contact after my father married Anya, I can still
hear her sweet voice putting me to bed.

I cut off ties with Mother
after I met Gillian. I used it as an excuse to get closer to
Father, to be granted further access to his home and new family. He
had no use for my mother; I needed to prove that I was
his
son more than hers. I
needed to claim my rightful place as his heir, as the future of his
beloved company.

He never suspected my real
motivation for wanting to be closer. He was blind when it came to
people. He understood dollars and stats more than feelings and
behavior. Martin Vanderson was a genius in business but an imbecile
at home.

And Miles Vanderson, his
son and only hope for the continuation of his legacy? I am a genius
in both. I smile at this thought. I know it’s not completely true,
only half. If I was a genius at home, I would’ve seen through the
lies Gillian told me. I would’ve known she was planning her escape.
I would’ve stopped her before she ever had a chance to step one
foot out of my reach, before she ever had the chance to become this
Grace Martin person she’s pretending to be.

That was yet another spite
to me, I’m sure, choosing a name that ties her to my father more
than me. She’s rubbing my nose in my failed plans for
us.

Getting into bed nude, the
cool sheets are comforting against my electrified skin. I lie
perfectly still, my steepled fingers on my chest rising and falling
the only movement, as I relive the past. I might as well; I won’t
be getting the rest I need tonight. I won’t be able to quiet my
mind. I haven’t been able to silence my thoughts since Gillian
entered my life six years ago.

I might as well torture
myself with the memories I have. It’s a familiar bedtime story I
like to savor: the Prince saving the poor Stepsister from an evil
witch, the white knight hero that always gets the girl in the end.
Their happily ever after is always an epic love story for the
ages.

Gillian did need saving.
The fairytales of old never held a candle to the horrors that girl
had been through. Her body was a litany of miseries at the hands of
her mother. Her tears were the ink that dried all too quickly after
each new grim fable. Her mind was shattered with too many tales to
be held together in one volume.

Gillian was the sum of all
her terror, more beautiful than any girl has the right to be after
experiencing so much evil. But she wasn’t untouched by that evil,
not always. There were moments when I would witness the real her.
I’d see the parts she kept hidden away, safe behind her vacant,
unblinking, angelic face.

I’d catch a glimpse when
she was doodling at the kitchen table while the staff prepared
breakfast around her; when she was angry, smashing and thrashing
around, thinking no one would see her; when she was seductive,
using her body to tease and tempt any male around; and my personal
favorite, when she was withdrawn, shelling up in herself to avoid
more anguish, reading her books. She was all of these, hidden
behind her innocent and pleasant facade
.

I never understood how my
father failed to see any of this. The staff all took notice of her
odd behaviors, but they were all too well paid and trained to say
anything. Her mother knew. Of course she did. She was the witch in
this story.

I did
see what my father saw in her mother though. Anya had played
him. Or she thought she had. She had no idea the prison she was
signing up for when she agreed to marry the wealthy Martin
Vanderson so quickly. She was beautiful, a 31 year old version of
Gillian. She was charming and sweet, at least when she was around
other people. She never showed her true self to anyone except her
daughter and, of course, me. My father never saw the real Anya; of
that, I am sure.

Eventually, she showed
herself to me. I forced her to. It was almost a year after Anya and
Gillian moved into my father’s house before it happened. It was
almost a year after Anya lost the baby that had tied her to her
fate with my father, the baby she had originally used to tie my
father to her. It was almost a year after I saw Gillian in the
library that first time.

Thinking through these
memories does calm me because I always get to this part of the
story and can almost feel Gillian’s presence with me
again.

Gillian did need saving, and
I
was
her white
knight of sorts. I smile into the dark, relaxing my hands onto my
chest with the warmth of these memories. A sigh escapes and I
almost think I could sleep, if only to have Gillian in my
dreams.

San Francisco: Simon
Lamb

Sitting on my sofa, Grace
looks smaller. She’s curled into herself, unresponsive. I don’t
sit, still trying to think. “That wasn’t your boyfriend?” I know
the answers to all my questions, but I just want to get her talking
again. She only shakes her head. “Look at me!” Her head snaps up in
attention. “Fucking answer me, no shaking or nodding, but fucking
words. Got it?!”

She starts to nod but
stops. “Okay.” The vacant look starts to fade. It’s something
anyway. “No. He was not my boyfriend.” Her voice is still flat
though.

“Was he always that rough
with you?” I want to know this answer.

Grace only shrugs and looks
away, but she quickly brings her eyes back to me when I take a step
towards her. “Not always.” Something shifts in her look again. A
fierceness is added to her expression; her voice deepens. “Only
when I
allowed
him
to be. When I let him play out his little fantasies of being a
man.”

I smile at this. She
stretches her body, coming out of her shell more. I watch her
change. Her limbs relax and she leans her head to the side to look
at me, twirling her hair lethargically. She’s back to dancing her
other hand around her tiny body too. “Did it excite you,
Trust?”

I laugh and finally sit
down in a chair opposite her. She’s certifiably nuts. I’ve come to
that conclusion. She must be. She bounces from one extreme to the
next. Drugs? I look at her arms. No signs of any so far, but maybe
she’s a secret pill popper. “Are you on drugs, Red?”

“I saw how turned on you
got…when Josh slapped me. I couldn’t help seeing your cock get hard
for me.” She’s doing her best seductive lounging—touching her face,
teasing me with her eyes and body. But I’m not in the mood for cat
and mouse.

I laugh again but add with
a menacing tone, “Answer my question, or you’re going to see what a
real smack feels like.”

She pouts and wiggles her
tits playfully. “Is that all you men ever want to do with a poor
defenseless girl?” I gotta give it to her; she makes me laugh. And
all her lifelessness is gone at least. She’s fully aware that my
threat was real, but she’s not afraid at all. She’s asking for it,
teasing and tempting.

I lean forward, elbows on my
knees. “You don’t want to play with me, Red. You’ll lose.
See,
I
won’t stop
with only a little smack to your face.”

“Grace.” I frown at her.
“Call me Grace.” She’s sitting up, a little back from me now. Her
pout is more real this time. Her face is a little softer than I’ve
seen before.

“All right,
Grace
. Now answer me like
a good girl. Are you using drugs?”

She only shakes her head.
“Good.” I think I believe her. So she’s just nuts, the regular
kind. That I can handle. That I expected. “Simon.” I grin at her
frowning pout. “You may call me Simon.”

“Nice to meet you,
Simon
.” She sarcastically
stresses my name to sound sexier, hissing it at me. All softness is
gone again.

“So you don’t have anywhere
to go? Anywhere I can take you?” I haven’t leaned back, still
pushing towards her. She’s relaxed again, but she reaches slowly
towards my hand. She’s like a lioness inching towards its prey
before it leaps in chase.

She shakes her head slowly
with the best come-fuck-me look I’ve seen on her face. “Can’t I
stay here with you, Simon?” Her voice got a little deeper, almost a
whisper at my name. I can feel my cock twitch in
response.

She
is
batshit nuts. I thought maybe she
lied before because she was in shock or something. Maybe she just
didn’t want to be alone right then. But now? She’s back to her
confident, assertive attitude. So why lie? Why ask to stay with a
stranger? Why act helpless?

I lean back, pulling my
hand from her loose fingers. “Why do you want to stay with me,
Grace?”

“Why not?” She looks around
my place, nonchalant. “It’s nice here. You’re nice. We fuck nice.
It would be nice to stay here.”

I laugh at her answer.
“I’m
not
nice.” She
only raises an eyebrow in response. “And I don’t live
here
.”

Her eyes narrow at this.
“You
said
this
was
your
place.”
She sounds angry, like
she’d
have reason to be angry with
me
if I lie to her?

“It is, but I don’t
live
here. My home is in
Alexander Valley, outside the city.”

Her smile is big again.
“Sounds nice. I could use a little down time.”

I should kick her out. I
should get rid of her craziness right now and forget all about my
obsession, but that’s not me. If I could forget my obsessions so
easily, I wouldn’t be the man I am. For now, I’m tied to her, at
least until I have her screams in my head, lulling me to
sleep.

I let my smile slowly
spread, knowing it’s both handsome and alarming. She only brightens
more, smiling more herself. “All right. We can go to my house and
stay there.” She nods and relaxes back into the sofa, like she’s
won a game of chess. “But let’s get a few things straight first,
Red.” She frowns at me again. “I meant what I said. I’m
not
nice. I won’t
be
nice from here on out.”
She smiles again, acting as if I’m telling a joke and she already
knows the ending.

She can’t be so crazy that
she’s missing the tone I’m using, that she’s missing my darkened
look of warning…can she? I search her eyes and can’t get past the
stony smile. So she’s not batshit crazy. No, just hardened. Maybe
she doesn’t believe me? Or maybe she thinks that I only mean the
games she played with Josh or any other guy that’s tried to dom
her? I don’t know if it’s a new level of cruelty—my desire to give
her forewarning. Am I now a cat that bats the mouse around, even
when we both know how it will end anyway?

I’m thrown by the
overwhelming urge to shock her, to see the first look of fear in
her eyes. I realize that I’ve not seen any from her. Is that why
I’m still obsessed? It’s part of it, I’m sure. The closest she’s
been to afraid was over the fucking crayons and pancakes at the
restaurant, and even that was more panic than real fear. I want to
see true fear from her—fear
of
me—but I can wait. I’m patient. I’ve had to wait
for her all this time; I can wait a little longer to get a good
look at her when she’s stripped of everything except
fear.