Free We Were One Once Book 1 by Willow Madison

boyfriend’s
apartment. I have no intention of letting her leave my side
today.

Seattle: Miles
Vanderson

    Hanging up my cell phone, I
head back to my chair next to the fireplace. I was reviewing
financial statements and minutes from the board meeting when
Spencer interrupted with his good news. Like my father, I still
like to have reports printed. I prefer to feel them in my hands.
It’s just another way I know I’ll never be free of his
influence.
    I toss the papers into the
fire. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else tonight
anyway. Leaning back into the wingchair more, I watch the fire
dance and lick the edges of the papers, following the ashes as they
float, the embers darkening. It’s soothing for only a
moment.
    Spencer is “zeroing in on
Gillian’s whereabouts.” He has a flare for the dramatic for a
one-dimensional type. He’s already impressed me with his tenacious
gift for sifting through the information that his predecessors
managed to mangle over the years. He’s a real bloodhound with his
tracking abilities, and he has Gillian’s scent now. I could hear
his excitement at the chase. The prize is within reach. I
hope.
    He found a coffee shop
waitress at a hotel in San Francisco willing to swear it was
Gillian whom she served breakfast. That was only a little over two
years ago. She remembered Gillian’s strange eating
habits.
    I smile remembering these
too. Gillian is a unique girl, a broken into a million pieces girl.
She’s fragile and weak, intense and stubborn, lost and unbalanced,
resilient and decisive. She’s been my everything since the moment I
first saw her.
    I close my eyes to better
picture her, just as she was that first time we met. It was in this
very room, the library. It’s why I spend so much time in here. It
was Gillian’s favorite room in this sprawling place. She said it
was the dark, the feel of being surrounded and encased that she
liked. I open my eyes for a moment, taking in the floor to ceiling
shelves of books that no one reads, the panels of wood that add to
the masculine, warm feel. It looks impressive; it looks like a
library should. That’s all that ever mattered to Martin
Vanderson.
    I close my eyes again and
can almost hear Gillian against the crackle of the fire. I’d walked
in on her crying soft sobs; she was sitting as close as she could
to the fireplace on the rug. Her skinny legs were tucked up under
her dress, her chin quivering and causing the tears to bounce over
the thin material.
    She was an angel, a dark
angel against the orange flames. Her tiny face was illuminated yet
shadowed, her dark eyes coal and ice, her tears the most beautiful
sight I’d ever seen. She didn’t startle; she didn’t even react when
I entered the room and came near her. She gave no sound or movement
when I sat on this same chair behind her, keeping her silence as my
own.
    When she slowly twisted
just her upper body to see me more and lifted her eyes that first
time, I think I actually gasped. I know I drew my breath in. How
could I not? She was perfection. The savage innocence in her eyes
was undeniable.
    I didn’t move. I just sat
still with my hands on my knees, much like I’m doing now, and
waited for her to speak or move first. When she did, it was in a
quick fluid motion. She stood, turned to me fully, and then
stopped. Her face stayed in shadow, unreadable, but her small body
was in perfect silhouette, projected by the fire behind her. The
wispy ends of her hair were like the embers glowing. She stood with
her legs slightly apart and her arms at her sides but open. It was
like she was offering herself to me. She knew I could see her
outline in full; the dress almost disappeared against the
flickering light.
    I groan even now picturing
her. I will have that imagine emblazoned in my memory
forever.
    She stayed still long
enough for my eyes to slowly travel up and down her body…twice. She
was only starting to develop the shape of a woman. She was lean