Romancing Tommy Gabrini (18 page)

“This
is Grace,” she said to Sal.
 
“She’s my
chief of staff.”

Sal smiled
at Grace. He wondered if Tommy had ever tapped into that.
 
“You could be my chief any night of the
week,” he said brazenly, and Tommy immediately flew to his feet.

“Sal!”
he yelled angrily at his younger brother and Sal and Jillian both looked at him.
 
Grace was already looking.
 

“What?”
Sal asked, confused by Tommy’s tone.
 
Jillian was taken aback, too.

“You’d
better get to your office.
 
I’ll talk to
you later.”

“What
did I do?”

“Did
I say you did anything?”

“You
didn’t have to say it.
 
You was too busy
screaming to say it.
 
All I was doing
was---”

“I
said I’ll talk to you later,” Tommy said bluntly.
 
“Jillian and I have business to discuss.
 
We’ll talk later.”

Sal
hesitated, he hated when his brother handled him that way.
 
But then he looked at Grace and smiled.
 
Who was he kidding?
 
Tommy had probably already tapped that black
ass of hers and was feeling territorial about it.
 
He didn’t even want little brother to so much
as flirt with his black beauty.
 

“Whatever
you say,” he said.
 
“I was just trying to
show my brotherly love toward your guests.”
 
He extended his hand to Grace.
 
“I’m Sal by the way.
 
Tommy’s
younger brother.
 
He might have mentioned
me when the two of you were, how do I say it?”

“Sal!”
Tommy warned again.

Sal
held up his hands.
 
“Alright already, I’m
leaving, I’m leaving.
 
Geez.”
 

To
Grace’s relief, he left and closed the door.

Also
to Grace’s relief, Jillian then took over.
 
She headed toward Tommy’s desk, with Grace following behind her, talking
as she went.
 
“Tommy, darling,” she
said.
 
“It’s so wonderful to see you
again.
 
It’s been ages.
 
How are you this beautiful morning?”

“I’ll
be great if you have what I asked you to bring.”

“But
I brought Grace instead,” she said with a smile.
 

Grace
could have drop-kicked Jillian at that very moment.
 
But Jillian kept going, as if she, like
Tommy’s brother, just knew there had to have been something more than a
hello-goodbye history between Grace and Tommy.
 
“You do remember Grace, don’t you?”

Tommy
knew Jillian’s games, which were always blatant and self-evident to him.
 
Which also meant, he was pleased to discover,
that she was making assumptions that weren’t founded in any facts that she
had.
 
She was assuming, because he had
showed interest in Grace during her dinner party a couple of months ago, that
he had probably slept with Grace.
 
She
didn’t know that to be a fact.
 
But she
assumed it was.
 
It was his job to keep
it as a mere assumption.
 
At least during
this meeting.
 

“I
remember Grace,” Tommy said without any outsized emotion.
 
“Hello Grace, how are you?”

Grace
attempted to smile, but she knew it was a shaky attempt. “I’m good.
 
And you?”

“I
would certainly be better if your boss here did what I told her to do.
 
Sit down, ladies.”

Tommy
remained standing as Grace and Jillian took seats in front of his desk.
 
Then he sat down too, pleased to be off of
his feet again.
 
He’d slept with many
females in his past and then ran into them at some social or business event
some time later.
 
But he never had this
kind of unnerving reaction to any of them.
 
Not ever.

Jillian
handed Grace her briefcase.
 
“Get that
report for me, dear,” she ordered.

Grace
didn’t know what report she was referencing, but she was too pleased to have
something to do other than staring at Tommy.
 
She began searching through the briefcase.

“It’s
beautiful outside today,” Jillian said and began a lot of small talk while
Grace searched.
 
Tommy couldn’t help
it.
 
His eyes immediately moved from
Jillian and her ranting about the weather, to Grace.

She
was dressed beautifully, he thought, in a blue pant suit with a low-cut yellow
blouse, and a blue and yellow scarf tossed elegantly around her thin neck.
 
It wasn’t an expensive look, and he probably
would have told her to lose the scarf if he had any say in the matter, but she
wore it as well as it could be worn.
 

    
He’d missed her.
 
He kept thinking about giving her a call for
weeks after their encounter that night.
 
Even when he was in Europe, he constantly wanted to phone her.
 
Early on it was a remarkably strong desire he
had to get back in touch with her.
 
An
incredibly strong desire.
 

But
every time he picked up that phone he thought about what going down that road
with her truly meant, and would therefore hang the phone back up.
 
Was he really ready to give up the freedom
his lifestyle accorded him?
 
Was he
really ready to commit to one woman and one woman only?
 
But even that grand consideration wasn’t what
weighed heaviest on his mind.
 
He
believed Grace had what it took to satisfy him forever.
 
And not just sexually, either.
 
They could really be good together, a good
team.
 

But
that was the problem.
 
Because in Grace
he saw everything he thought he wanted.
 
She had wife and mother written all over her and he couldn’t imagine a better
lover in his bed.
 
But he knew he’d fall
in love with her, and fall hard.
 
And
that would expose him again.
 
That would
open him up again.
 
And she could go to
town on him.
 
She could break his heart
so devastatingly that no manner of man could ever put him back together.
 
He could fall just that hard for her.
 
And taking that kind of risk, when he could
just as easily forget about her and go on with his life as it was, disturbed
him mightily.
 
Especially when he already
couldn’t get her off of his mind, or out of his dreams.
 
Being with her could hurt, and not being with
her could hurt, too.
 
It was a quandary
he didn’t know how to solve.

And
that was why, when he left her bed, he didn’t get into another woman’s bed
since.

And
what about her, he thought.
 
What did he
really have to offer her?
 
She was nearly
nine years his junior.
 
He was jaded and
had seen too much in this life and was always out of town, or out of the entire
country on business.
 
And then there was
his cousin Reno and his mob connections.
 
He would have to expose her to that side of his life, too.
 
What would she get out of the bargain except
some aging playboy who still wasn’t certain?
 
That was also why he didn’t phone her.
 
He had too many reasons not to.

But
unlike any woman he’d ever been with, he remembered her.
 
He remembered her smile and her walk and even
her sweet scent.
 
He even remembered how
she felt in his arms.
 
Many nights he
thought about how she felt.
 
His dick was
stiffening now just thinking about how she felt.

“Is
this it?” she asked Jillian as she pulled out what appeared to be a typed
report.

“That’s
it.”
 
Jillian took it from Grace and
handed it to Tommy.

“About
my plan,” Jillian began but Tommy, rifling through the pages, shook his head.

“Is
this the same report you faxed over here?”

“Yes,
that’s the one.”

“That’s
a no,” he said.

“But
why, Tommy?
 
It addresses all of your
concerns.”

“It
addresses none of my concerns and you know it.
 
And they will be addressed, Jillian.”

Grace
looked at Tommy. He seemed so different sitting there, behind his massive desk
in his massive office in his massive office building.
 
That night she was with him he was so tender
and gentle with her.
  
Now he was anything
but.
 
Which made her wonder if he even
remembered that night the way she remembered it.

“I’m
addressing what I can, Tommy,” Jillian went on.
 
“But the idea of cameras all over the office is just going too far.”

Grace
stared at him.
 
So he was the security
expert who wanted to place cameras all over Trammel?
 
He was the guy Pen and Jared was begging her
to stop?
 

“I
understand your concerns,” Jillian continued, “but I just can’t bring myself to
spy on my employees.
 
I don’t think the
camera idea is workable.”

Tommy
looked at her.
 
“I didn’t ask you to
place cameras anywhere.
 
That was your
idea.
 
And I agree, it’s a terrible
idea.”

Jillian’s idea
, Grace thought.
 
Cameras
were Jillian’s idea
?
 
When it was
Jillian who was running around Trammel acting as if cameras were being forced
on her, not the other way around.
 

Tommy
went on.
 
“But so far hidden cameras are
the only idea you’ve come up with, and that is not acceptable, Jilly.
  
Too many complaints have been leveled
against your sales and marketing departments and I want to know exactly how
those departments are being managed.
 
Trammel more and more is becoming known as an ethically-challenged
company and that reputation has got to end before it picks up any more
steam.
 
There’s no two ways about this.
  
Changes have got to be made.”

Grace
looked at Jillian.
 
She felt as if she
was witnessing a clash of the titans.
 

“I
understand your concerns, Tommy.
 
I have
those same concerns.
 
But there’s a right
way and a wrong way to go about this.”

“Then
fine.
 
Where’s your plan?
 
Why haven’t you presented a plan of action
yet?
 
I told you to have a POA on my desk
eight weeks ago.
 
Then last week.
 
Now you’re sitting in here and I still have
nothing from you.
 
Don’t make me take
matters into my own hands, Jilly, because you aren’t going to like what I come
up with.
 
Up until now I’ve allowed you
to run your company the way you saw fit.
 
I’ve stayed completely out of it.
 
But you’re running it in the ground and I can’t continue that, not after
what my auditors reported back to me, not as long as I’m associated with
Trammel.
 
I have too much capital tied up
in that venture.
 
I’m not going to sit
back and let that company go to seed under my watch.
 
I’ll take drastic measures if I have to.
 
Do we understand each other, Jillian?”
 

“In
other words,” Jillian said carefully, “you’ll try to squeeze me out?”

His
desk intercom buzzed.
 
Tommy stared her
in the eyes.
 
“I’ll do what I have to
do,” he said, and then pressed the button.
 
“Yes, Anne?”

“Your
Tokyo guests have arrived, sir.”

“Escort
them to the board room.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Tommy
stood up, which prompted Jillian and Grace to stand up, too.
 
He tossed the report back toward Jillian.

“I
want that POA by close of business today,” he said as he buttoned his suit
coat.
 
“If I don’t have it, then I will
institute plan B.
 
And you will not like
plan B.”
 
Tommy looked at Grace.
 
His heart squeezed when her big eyes returned
his gaze.
 
“Miss McKinsey,” he said with
a nod, and then left.