we were one once book 2: "A Dark Romance" by Willow Madison

stomach and throat simultaneously, coughing for air and glaring at me.
    I slowly smile, control of my own breathing returning quickly to me.

18
    “You’ll do well to think twice about deliberately angering me again.” He smugly smiles while the pops of light recede from the fringe of my tunneled sight. My throat burns with each gasp, but my eyes try to convey the hatred that I’m now too choked to speak. For the moment anyway.
    The hand clutching my stomach, helping me to hold down the liquor I drank earlier with Simon, is also reminding me to swallow my anger. To hide it, hold it, bury it. I’ll find a way to regurgitate the fury in my heart someday. It’s a vow I make to myself.
    I double over in my seat, a cramp clutching my stomach, tears threatening my eyes. I refuse to cry for him. That was a vow I made four years ago, when he made it clear that he didn’t love me . I won’t show him that he can hurt me like that. Not ever again.
    But the memory comes flooding back to me, a will of its own. A punishment for having trapped memories. I can’t not remember something that happened to me in full sensory detail. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and, most of all, the touches of every memory are always with me. Even the memories of the others that I’ve shared won’t go away. I remember everything as if it happened only moments before.
    But the memory of Miles four years ago…I can’t lie to myself…It’s one of my hardest memories to shrug off. As hard as the memory of that locked cell. As hard as the memory of Miles hurting Grace. It’s a different kind of pain that I’m not immune to. Not a cut to my flesh, but a slash into my heart.
    Everything changed so quickly after Mother died. After Martin was no longer with us too. Miles didn’t waste any time taking complete control after their deaths.
    In truth, he’d already taken control the year before when he joined Mother in her sadistic pleasures. But that had just been a warm up for what was to come. Grace and I would both be devastated by him that last year living under his control. Her for his cruel treatment of her body; me for his cruel treatment of my heart.
     
    “Gillian?” I smile up at Miles’ stern face and take the hand he has held out for me. Uncrossing my legs, I rise from the library rug and follow his lead in silence to my bedroom. In the long walk, I rack my brain for anything that I might have done to anger him today, but I can’t think of anything. Maybe he’s had a hard day at the office and wishes to unwind with his whip…
    He silently closes the door behind us and I walk to my usual spot to await his mood, halfway between the door and my bed. Since he became my guardian last week, he hasn’t punished me once. He’s hardly touched me. Even Grace has not received much of his affection or wrath.
    He turns around slowly and an unfamiliar cold wash of fear splashes over me. His look is intense, as I’ve seen before. But his features are still refined, the slopes and angles of his strong bone structure aren’t marred by any scrunching or frowning. He doesn’t appear angry or ready to unleash his suppressed desires. But he’s not smiling either, just staring at me.
    Uncertain, I reach to pull my shorts down and he finally breaks the silence, “No. That’s not why I brought you in here.” He comes to stand in front of me, taking my hands into his. “I brought you here to inform you of certain changes.” The same cold wash, but this time it settles as a weight in my chest.
    I risk speaking out of turn, “So much has already changed,” adding a smile to show him my gratitude.
    His lips only return my smile slightly, “Perhaps this would be a better conversation to have with…with a different you…"
    I’m hurt that he would ask me to leave, that he’d ask for Grace, but I smile more, wanting to please him, “All right, if that’s what you want, Miles.” I retreat onto the stage, but stay close.
    His smile brightens