Romancing Tommy Gabrini (17 page)

“I
don’t either.
 
That’s why you should just
leave me here.”

“You’re
going,” Jillian said firmly.
 
“And the
fact that you’re pretty doesn’t hurt.
 
Because I will tell you, darling, Tommy Gabrini holds all of the cards
right now.
 
He’s in the catbird seat in
this organization, make no mistake about it.
 
And the asshole knows it.
 
And
until you’re willing to entrust your ten shares to me, so that I can reclaim
majority ownership, he will remain in that seat.
 
So don’t talk to me about leaving you
anywhere.
 
Until you’re willing to play
ball, and throw your shares behind mine and Cam’s, you’re going and going until
you can’t go anymore.
 
The survival of my
company is at stake.”

Then
Jillian cranked up, and drove off.

Grace
sat quietly as they made the trek across town.
 
She was more convinced now than ever that all Cameron ever wanted from
her, and all Jillian still wanted, was those ten shares in Trammel that she
inherited from her father.
 
Her shares,
coupled with theirs, would give Jillian a fifty-two percent stake.
 
Nobody, not even Tommy, would be able to
unseat her as majority owner.
 
But that
part really wasn’t what was bothering Grace, because her shares were off the
table.
 
She wasn’t about to give Jillian,
or Cam, anything.

But
what bothered her more was Tommy.
 
She
hadn’t heard from him since the night he made love to her, and she was okay
with that.
 
The fact that he’d been out
of the country was nice to know, but it really didn’t matter.
 
He had made clear before he took her to bed
that he preferred open relationships, and she had made clear that she
didn’t.
 
So he spared her any grief, and
she spared him any waste of his time, and they went their separate ways.
 

But
to suddenly be about to see him again was unnerving.
 
The idea that he’d seen her naked, and that
his dick had been inside of her, and that she now had to smile and shake his
hand and pretend they were nothing more than mere acquaintances, was something
she always avoided having to deal with.
 
But thanks to Jillian she had to deal with it now.
 
Right before her very eyes.
 
The mouth that once licked her pussy was
about to say hello to her again.
 
How in
the world, she still wondered, could people approach something as monumental as
that in any kind of casual way?
 
Grace
had so-called casual sex once in her entire life, when she slept with Tommy
without any hope of a relationship thereafter, and she was still reeling from
that decision.
 

But
there was also a part of her that wanted to see him again.
 
That was the pitiful part.
 
She never admitted it out loud, but she
thought about him, even dreamed about him, long after that one night stand.
 
And it wasn’t just because he was great in
bed, although she’d never had better.
 
But he was good company too.
 
He
made her laugh and think and she thought they could really hit it off.
 

But
he didn’t think so.
 
He got what he
wanted and took the hell off.
 
Which was
what he had said he was going to do.
 

But
that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Salvatore
Luciano Gabrini, better known as Sal Luca Gabrini, sat in Tommy’s office in
front of Tommy’s massive desk.
 
Tommy sat
behind the desk, leaned back, his hands behind his head, his leg crossed over
his thigh.
 
He wore a double-breasted
Armani suit and a pair of hand woven Italian shoes.
 
Sal Luca, his younger brother, was dressed in
jeans and a sweat shirt.
 
He was sipping
coffee and trying to stay awake, after yet another sleepless night in
jail.
 
And as perfectly groomed as Tommy
was, Sal Luca was a mess.
 
Their cousin
Reno always referred to Sal as Tommy’s shadow, as a man who idolized his big
brother to the point of emulation.
 
But
Tommy never saw it that way.
 
Sal didn’t
want to be like him.
 
Because if he did,
he wouldn’t continue to allow himself to be so compromised.
 
Over and over again.

“But
you aren’t seeing my side of this here situation, Tommy,” Sal Luca tried once
again to explain it to his brother.
 
“You
just got back in the country.
 
You forgot
what I have to deal with day in and day out.”

“Spare
me, Sal.”

“But
I’m for real here,” Sal insisted.
 
“It
wasn’t my fault this time.
 
I was just
there, minding my own business, then these fuckers come at me.
 
What was I supposed to do?
 
Let them talk all that smack right in front
of my lady?
 
Let them call my woman a
whore and a bitch and I just sit there?
 
Hell yeah I kicked their asses. You would have kicked’em too if they
were disrespecting one of your females.”

“There
are ways to handle your business,” Tommy said, “without jeopardizing your
freedom.
 
You don’t fight another man on
his own turf.
 
You let him talk.
 
Let him have his fun.
 
And then you get your people to follow him,
and to bring him to you.
 
To your
turf.
 
And then you handle your business.
 
You used to be a cop for crying out loud,
Sal!
 
You should know better.”

Sal
looked at Tommy as he sipped his coffee. Tommy was what their old man used to
call a backdoor asshole.
 
He was
patient.
 
He knew how to pick his
moments.
 
But his punishment was always
harsher.
 
Sal might hit the guy over the
head with a liquor bottle in the heat of the moment, all up front and in front
of the bar crowd.
 
But Tommy would see
the dude later, out of eyeshot of everyone, and permanently disfigure him.
 

Sal
was a front door asshole, the type who had to set the bully straight in front
of the crowd so that they could see his victory, and could see that he didn’t
let anybody make a fool out of him.
 
Tommy didn’t need anybody’s approval.
 
He didn’t give a damn what they saw.
 
He just wanted revenge.
 
And when
he finished with the bully he’d have it.
 
Far more devastatingly than Sal’s impulsive responses ever would.
 
The crowd wouldn’t know of his triumph, but
unlike Sal, Tommy wouldn’t care.
 
The
fact of the triumph itself was all that ever mattered to Tommy.

“All
of that waiting and scheming don’t work for me,” Sal said.
 
“That’s how you handle your business.
 
It ain’t how I handle mine.
 
Fucker mess with me, he gets what’s coming to
him right then and right there.”

“And you
end up in jail,” Tommy pointed out. “You end up at the mercy of some judge who
might hate these Italian mafia types like your ass and want to send a message.”

“I’m
no mafia.”

“I
didn’t say you were.
 
But those judges
who are up for reelection around here, they don’t know that.
 
That’s why you have to be smart,
Salvatore.
 
You never put your freedom at
risk.”

Tommy’s
desk intercom buzzed.
 
He pressed
it.
 
“Yes?”

“Your
nine o clock is here, sir,” the female’s voice said.

“Bring
her up, Anne,” Tommy ordered.

“Yes,
sir,” Anne replied and Tommy clicked off.

“Who’s
coming up?” Sal asked.

“Jilly.”

Sal
rolled his eyes. “Not her,” he said with some distress.
 

“What’s
your problem with Jilly?”

“That
old bitch had the nerve to come on to me.”

Tommy
looked at his brother.
  
“What did you
do?”

“I
told her to kiss my ass, what you think?
 
She’s old enough to be my mother!”

“She’s
not that old,” Tommy said.

“Well,
she look it.
 
She ain’t my type, anyway.”

 
“Say what you want about Jilly,” Tommy said,
“but at least she has something going for her.
  
At least she’s a decent, settled woman.
 
Which is exactly what you need.”

“And
you don’t?” Sal asked his big brother. “You’re always on my case about getting
married and settling down, but what about you?
 
You’re still playing the field, even after Shanks dumped your ass.
 
You’re still out there same as me.
 
I like white meat, you like dark, but we’re
both still in the meat market.
 
Like last
night.
 
I’m rotting in jail so I call my
big brother.
 
He’s finally back in the
country so I figure he’d be more than happy to help me out.
 
But he’s too busy fucking some female to even
answer my call.”

“You
don’t know what I was doing.”

“You
was fucking,” Sal Luca said with great assurance. “If your cell phone was off,
that meant you was fucking.
 
You don’t
turn that phone off for any other reason.”

It
wasn’t true.
 
Tommy hadn’t been with
another woman during the entire time he was abroad.
 
And even after he returned yesterday morning,
he didn’t bother to take anyone to his bed last night.
 
But he wasn’t about to tell Sal anything like
that.

The
desk intercom buzzed again.
 
Tommy
pressed the button again.

“Miss
Birch has arrived, sir,” his secretary announced.

“Send
her in,” Tommy ordered.

Sal
Luca stood up.
 
“I’m outta here before I
have to tell that old witch a thing or two.”

“Watch
your tongue,” Tommy said.

“She’s
an old bat,” Sal said as he began heading for the door.
 
“How is that my fault?
 
It is what it is.”
 
Then Sal smiled.
 
“I’ll be in my office.”

Just
as he opened the door, however, Jillian, with Grace behind her, walked in.

“Sal!”
Jillian said with a grand smile.

“How
you doing, Jilly?”

“I’m
doing fab,” Jillian said as she air-kissed both his cheeks.
 
Grace could see him cringe.
 
But she couldn’t even pretend to concentrate on
him or Jillian.
 
Her eyes immediately
roamed further into the office, to the man behind the desk.

Tommy
looked up just as she looked over, and as soon as he saw that it was Grace, as
soon as he saw that it was the one woman who had haunted his dreams night after
night for the last several weeks, the pen that he had just picked up to sign
yet another document awaiting his signature, fell weightlessly from his hand.

CHAPTER NINE

Tommy’s
heart hammered against his chest when he saw who had just entered his office
with Jillian.
 
This was only his second
day back from Europe, and already he was staring into the eyes of the one woman
he had been determined to avoid.
 
Grace.
 
He always knew, given his
stake in Trammel, that they would eventually meet again.
 
But to see her this soon, just out of the
blue like this, stunned him.

But
he knew he had to keep it together.
 
He
was more skillful at playing it cool than anybody he knew.
 
He therefore summoned every ounce of that
skill when he saw Grace.

“Who’s
your friend?” Sal was asking Jillian as Tommy and Grace tried with all they had
not to show just how shook up they suddenly were.
 

 
A twinge of jealousy shot through Jillian
when she saw Sal’s eyes immediately move away from her, but that was the very
reason she brought Grace along.
 
In
Jillian’s way of doing business, even the slightest advantage, no matter how
ridiculously superficial, was better than none.