Romancing Tommy Gabrini (16 page)

“Don’t
do it again.”
 
He said this so firmly
that she was slightly offended by it.
 
“I’m just saying,” he said and smiled.
 
And she smiled, too.

“You
could probably charm the grand prize lottery winner out of their lottery ticket
with that smile, you know that, buddy?” she asked him.

He
laughed.
 
“Believe that if you
want.”
 
Then his look turned serious
again.
 
“But be careful, all right?
 
Wait on the elevator, I don’t care how long
it takes.”
 

“At
night, okay.
 
But during the day?
 
I don’t know about that.”

Tommy
smiled.
 
Half a concession was better
than none.
 
“Fair enough,” he said.

Grace
nodded, although she sensed that his concern was misplaced.
 
It was as if he was going on about her stair
climbing so that he wouldn’t have to go on about them.
 
Which was fine by her since she didn’t have a
clue, either.
 

“Good
night, Tommy,” she said, unsure how they should part.
 

Tommy
still felt unsettled.
 
He felt as if he
was about to leave someone near and dear to him rather than what they both
knew, given her objections to open relationships, was nothing
 
more than a one-night stand.
 
No relationship at all.
 
And the fact that these feelings were rising
within him, feelings he hadn’t expected to ever have for a woman ever again,
threw him.

He
had to do her a favor and get the hell away from her as fast as he could.
 
He wasn’t ready to give up his
lifestyle.
 
He wasn’t ready to cede power
to a woman like Grace, a woman who could leave him dangling too and break his
heart even worse than ShoShawna had broken it.

“Good
night, Grace,” he said.
 
And as quickly
as he said it he wanted to pull her into his arms again, and carry her back to
bed.
 
But he knew that would only
complicate an already complicated situation.
 
He just opened the door, glanced back at her with that killer smile of
his, a fretfulness in his deep blue eyes, and then he left.

Grace
closed the door behind him, still reeling herself.
 
If there was ever a guy who had the
potential, she thought, it was Tommy.
 
She saw something so decent in him that it scared her.
 
But then she dismissed such hopeless
fantasies.
 

“Oh,
well,” she thought regrettably as she headed for the shower.
 
“No sense crying over spilled milk.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Two Months Later

“It’s
about time,” Jillian said as soon as Grace stepped off of the elevator on the
top floor at Trammel.

“What’s
about time?” Grace asked.

“Get
back on,” replied Jillian as she stepped onto the elevator.
 
“If I have to suffer, you’re going to suffer
right along with me.”

Grace
got back on the elevator.
 
“What
suffering?
 
Jilly, what are you talking
about?”

“I’m
talking about Thomas Gabrini.
 
That’s
what I’m talking about.”

The
doors to the elevator dinged shut and Grace suddenly felt as if she was
trapped.
 
Her heart was hammering.
 
Jillian was talking about Thomas
Gabrini?
 
The same Thomas Gabrini that
Grace had had sex with two months ago?
 
Why would Jillian be all of a sudden talking about
him
?
 
Grace hadn’t heard from
him since that night, and she’d long since gotten over it.
 
Jillian couldn’t possibly know anything about
that.
 

Or
could she?

“What
about him?” Grace asked, trying with all she had not to show any emotion.
 
She removed her briefcase from her right hand
to her left and pressed the elevator’s down button.

“He’s
not satisfied with my plan and he wants to meet with me.
 
Since he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off
of you at my dinner party a couple months ago, since he found you so attractive,
I figure your presence at this meeting can only help.”

She
didn’t know anything, which was good, but Grace was still baffled.
 
“What plan he isn’t satisfied with?”

“Our
plan for internal changes here at Trammel,” Jillian explained.
 
She pulled a compact out of her purse and was
checking her heavy makeup.
 
“His people
claim we do business all wrong, perhaps even unethically, and he wants us to
change everything.”

“I
still don’t get it, Jilly.
 
He wants us
to change before he’ll sign a contract with us, is that what you’re
saying?”
 
From the way he used to come
around, she thought he already had a contract with them.
 
She also had noticed how she hadn’t seen him
at the office ever since their night together.

Jillian,
however, found her lack of knowledge nauseating.
 
She rolled her eyes.
 
“You don’t bother to learn anything about
this business.
 
Sometimes I wonder why I
keep you around at all.”

But
Grace stood up for herself.
 
“That’s not
fair, Jilly,” she said.
 
“I do my job and
I do it well.”

“Then
why don’t you know anything?
 
Why don’t
you know that Thomas Gabrini owns Trammel?”

The
doors opened on the ground floor and Jillian hurried off.
 
Grace, stumped, just stood there, and then
raced off behind her.

“He
owns it?” she asked as they headed for Jillian’s car.
 
“What are you talking about?
  
You
own Trammel.”

“And
so does he,” Jillian said.
 
“Unfortunately.”

Grace
grabbed Jillian by the arm to stop her progression.
 
Jillian stopped and looked at her chief of
staff.
 
Grace’s bright brown eyes were
wide with confusion.
 
“Okay, now, you
really need to explain to me what’s going on.”

Jillian
seemed flustered, as if she was about to relay information that Grace should
already know.
 
“Once upon a time, just
after Clive died, I owned seventy-seven percent of the shares in Trammel,
that’s accurate.
 
And with Cam’s five
shares I was unquestionably the majority stakeholder.”

“Right.”

“About
a year or so before my husband and your father were in that car accident,
Trammel was beginning to get in some serious trouble and then the accident and
then I was given the reins.
 
In order to
stay in business, I had to sell off many shares.”

“How
many?”

Jillian
hesitated.
 
“Forty percent.”

Grace
was floored.
 
“You sold more than you
kept?”

“I
had to,” Jillian said loudly and then, realizing there were others coming and
going in the building’s garage, she motioned for them to get in her car.

She
pressed the keypad on her Bentley and she and Grace sat inside, with she on the
driver’s side and Grace as her passenger.
 
She turned to Grace.

“I
had no choice but to agree to his terms.
 
And he wanted forty percent stake.
 
So I gave it to him, and kept thirty-seven percent.”

“But
why would you give up so much? I mean, you needed the capital, okay, but---”

“There’s
no but about it, Grace,” Jillian made clear.
 
“He was the only game in town, at least the only one I would want to do
business with, and that was what he was offering.”
 
Then bitterness appeared in her small
eyes.
 
“The ruthless sonafabitch.”

“So
you now own thirty-seven percent,” Grace said, “and he owns forty?”

“Right.”

“But
I still don’t see how he can dictate to you.
 
Cam still owns five shares in Trammel.
 
His five shares, along with your thirty-seven, would give you more stake
in the company than Tommy, that is, than Mr. Gabrini’s forty percent.”

“Yes,
but there’s your ten percent out there and another group of investors who own
the final eight percent.”

“Are
they willing to part with their shares?”

“They
say they aren’t, of course.
 
But Tommy is
rich.
 
And anybody can be bought.
 
The asshole.
 
He’s been away in Europe for two months.
 
Two whole months.
 
He’s not back
in town two days and he’s already demanding I do this and I do that.
 
Who does he think he is?”

Jillian
exhaled, to collect herself again.
 
But Grace
was still reeling over what she’d just heard.
 
Tommy had been out of the country for the last two months?
 
Was that the reason why he didn’t phone her?
 
The fact that he wasn’t available was why she
hadn’t heard from him? But that didn’t wash either, Grace thought.
 
Because, in or out of the country, he still
could have phoned her if he was interested.
 
Surely he could have done that.
 
And
if she was so interested, why didn’t she phone him?

Because
she knew, like he knew, that you don’t follow up on one-night stands.
 
You just don’t.
 
He moved on with his life, and she went on
with hers.
 
She had to remember that.
 
She had to get herself together before she
got anywhere near Tommy Gabrini so that she didn’t forget the truth about their
relationship: that there was no relationship.
  
And neither one of them had ever expected there to be one.
  

But
Jillian was still focused on her own issues with Tommy.
 
“So we’re going to his office,” she said in a
calmer tone, “and we will listen to what he has to say.
 
Then you and I together are going to have to
convince him that he needs to back off and let me do what I do.
 
You bat your big eyes and cross your long
legs and I’ll do the same, even though I assure you he won’t be looking at
mine.”

“Mine
either, Jillian,” Grace said, disgusted by her boss’s foolish belief that
batting eyes and crossing legs could get her anywhere.
 
“I don’t know why you think these men are
that gullible.”

“Because,
when it comes to a pretty face, they are,” Jillian said.
 
She saw how Tommy couldn’t take his eyes off
of Grace during her dinner party.
 
And
Jillian was no fool.
 
If Tommy wanted a
lady bad enough, he usually got her.
 
And
an innocent like Grace?
 
They probably
slept together that same night.
 
Jillian
was willing to bet on it.

But
she didn’t go there.

“I
think you sell men too short,” Grace said.
 
“Especially a successful businessman like Tommy Gabrini.”

“Ah,
Tommy’s no better than anybody else!
 
He’s as gullible as the next guy.
 
Trust me, he is,” Jillian added and looked Grace dead in the eye.
 
“And you know why he’s so gullible,
Grace?
 
Because sex sales, that’s why,
and Tommy loves sex.
 
So we have to
simply provide that illusion that we’re willing to sell it.
 
Once we get what we want, which is for Tommy
to let me run my business my way, then he’ll realize we weren’t selling a
thing.
 
But until then, we bat eyes and
cross legs until we can’t bat and cross any longer!”

Grace
saw an out, and decided to take it.
 
“You
may as well leave me here, Jilly,” she said, “because I’m not going down that
road.”

“You
never do,” Jillian replied with some bitterness in her voice.
 
“You show up at my dinner parties and behave
as if you’re above it all time and time again.
 
I ask you to simply be charming, and you won’t even do that.
 
You smile, you’re polite, but you’re above it
all.
 
I don’t know why I even bother.”