Romancing Tommy Gabrini (38 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

They
walked slowly along the Vegas Strip, hand in hand.
 
Tommy knew she was having second thoughts
about hooking up with a man like him, and he wanted to give her time to work
out those feelings.
 
But he also wanted to
plead his case.

They
stepped into a sidewalk café and Grace took a table by the window.
 
While Tommy went to the counter to get sodas,
Grace stared at the swirl of activity around her.
 
A woman committed suicide, she thought.
 
Was it because of her love for Tommy?
 
Or was she murdered the way her boyfriend had
claimed?
 
And what about Tommy’s
connection to Reno?
 
He said he wasn’t
into the mob life, but whenever Reno needed him, did Tommy help him?

Those
were questions she knew she had to ask.
 
And those were questions she was beginning to dread the answer to.

She
looked over at Tommy as he stood at the counter, waiting for his drinks.
 
She saw the looks other females were giving
to him, even as he ignored all of them.
 
Loving a Gabrini wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, Trina had
already warned her.
 
And she was now
beginning to understand just what Trina meant.
 
Tommy might not have the mob drama that Reno apparently had, but he had
female drama.
 
And plenty of it.
 
And she had to decide if she was willing to
live with that drama, or if she wasn’t.
 

As
she casually looked around the room, and saw the looks females who didn’t even
know Tommy were giving him, she could only imagine what those many females,
who’d shared his bed before, felt about him.
 
Could she handle it, was really the only question, in the end, that was
going to matter most.

Tommy
returned to their table with two lattes.
 
He gave Grace one and sat down beside her.

“Thanks,”
she said.

Tommy
took sips of his coffee while staring as Grace took sips of hers.
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“Disappointed in me?” he asked her.

“I
just don’t understand,” she said.

“What
don’t you understand?”

Grace
searched for the right words. “Why do you have to have so many women?” she
asked him.

“I
haven’t had another woman since I slept with you, Grace.”

And
that, Grace realized, was the real crust of her concern.
 
“But why haven’t you slept with another one?”
she asked him.
 
“You’ve had plenty of
women before me.
 
You were Mister Open
Relationship, remember?
 
What’s changed?”

Grace
stared at him as she waited for his answer.
 
She prayed he didn’t say,
I met
you, that’s what changed
, because she wasn’t going to buy that.
 
It had to be more than the fact that he met
her.
 
A lot more.

Tommy
leaned forward, cupping his latte.
 
“I
changed,” he said.
 
“That’s what
changed.
 
Me.”
 
He thought about it.
 
“When I talked to you at that dinner party,
and you exposed me for what I really was, it alarmed me.”

Grace
was stumped.
 
“What did I expose?”

“You
exposed my hypocrisy, that’s what.
 
All
of my sleeping around wasn’t about my sparing all of those women, it was about
having my cake and eating it, too.
 
I was
using people for my own gratification.
 
There was nothing noble about that.
 
Yeah, those women may have been using me, too, but that didn’t exonerate
me.
 
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and I
was turning that truth on its head.”
 

He
looked at Grace.
 
“You made me see the
truth, Grace.
 
After I slept with you on
your birthday, and left your apartment, I couldn’t stop seeing that truth.
 
You were about to be yet another one of my
conquests.
 
Yet another woman I had in
the bag.”
 
He frowned.
 
“And it sickened me.”

Grace
stared at him.

“I’m
pushing forty and still living like some
got
damn
teenager.
 
When everything I really
wanted was what you had told me you wanted, too.”

“But
why didn’t you call me?
 
It was two
months later, Tommy, and it took your seeing me in your office with Jillian
before you called me.”

“I
know,” Tommy said, nodding his head.

“Why
didn’t you call me before then?”

Tommy
hesitated, and then sipped more coffee.
 
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully.

Grace
stared at him.
 
Complicated my ass, she
thought.
 
Loving Tommy Gabrini was going
to make complicated seem easy.

But
she did love him.

The next
day, while Tommy and Reno were together somewhere around the massive PaLargio,
Grace was in the PaLargio’s ballroom holding baby Dominic and watching Trina
discuss the baby’s upcoming birthday party with Eve, the party planner.
 
Trina’s main concern seemed to be the
decorations and the fact that Eve, a short, heavyset white woman with small
eyes, had her own ideas.
 
It seemed like
a battle more than a discussion to Grace, so she therefore turned her attention
away from the women, and to Dominic.

She
loved holding babies, and was pleased when Trina put Dommi in her arms.
 
He was a fluffy baby who was curious about
everything.
 
Everywhere her eyes roamed,
his eyes attempted to follow.
 
And he
smiled all the time and lifted his little feet.
 

Just
holding him made Grace think about Tommy, and what their child, if they ever
had one, would look like.
 
And she didn’t
mean outwardly, either, but inwardly.
 
Would he have his father’s propensities?
 
Would he break girls’ hearts, too?
 
Or would he be sensitive with his gorgeousness?
 
And she was certain he’d be gorgeous.
 
She couldn’t imagine a man who looked like
Tommy having any child that wasn’t ultra-beautiful.

But
even if he wasn’t beautiful at all, it wasn’t his outward look that concerned
Grace.

“This
is too much,” Trina said as she plopped down in the chair next to Grace’s.
 
“I have too much work to do than to be
entertaining Miss Sunshine over there.”

Grace
laughed.

“I’m
serious,” Trina said.
 
“She wants what
she wants but I had to remind her that this was my child’s birthday party, not
hers.
 
I hate going there with people,
but she left me no choice.”

“Did
you hire her?”

“Reno
did.
 
He just loves her.
 
But she has no love for me.”

Trina
and Grace laughed.
 
Trina reached for
Dommi, but Grace asked if she could continue holding him.

Then
there was a pause.
 
A long pause.
 
And Trina looked at Grace.

“You
okay?” she asked her.

“I
should be asking you that question,” Grace said.
 
“You’re the one who got hauled down to the
police station yesterday.”

“Ah,
I’m used to those clowns.
 
They don’t
bother me none.
 
I’m talking about you
and Tommy.”

Grace
attempted to smile.
 
“We’re getting
there.”

“Tommy’s
worth it, Grace.
 
I know sometimes it
might not seem like he is, but he is.
 
He’s a good man.”

“You
mean good like Reno?” Grace dared to ask.

“He’s
nothing like Reno,” Trina made clear.
 
“And he doesn’t need to be. One Reno in this world is quite enough,
thank-you.”

Grace
laughed.
 

“No,
Tommy makes love not war.
 
Until you
cross him,” Trina said with a smile.
 
“Then he turns war upside down.
 
But you’ve got a good one.”
 

“A
good looking one, certainly.”

“That
too,” Trina said and they laughed.

Then,
another pause.

Grace
looked at Trina.
 
“It’s a hard life,
isn’t it?”

“What
is?”

“Loving
a Gabrini.”

Trina
hesitated, and then nodded.
 
“Yes,” she
said.
 
Then she looked at her party
planner and frowned.
 
“Balloons on the
stage where the bands will be?” she asked as she hurried over for more battles
with the planner.
 
“Are you kidding me?”

Grace
huddled Dommi close.
 
And sighed.

Her
mood didn’t lift when she was on her way back up to the suite she shared with
Tommy and was stopped by the desk clerk.
 
He handed her an envelope. He said it had come for her about an hour
ago.

Grace
accepted it and made her way upstairs.
 
When she got into their suite, and opened the envelope, a frown
enveloped her face.
 
And then she fell
against the door, tears puddled in her eyes.

“Grace!”
Tommy called as he and Reno entered his suite.
 
Tommy was already heading for the bedroom, when Reno saw it.

“Tom,”
he said to his cousin.
 
Tommy
looked.
 
Reno was picking up a pile of
photographs that were scattered on the floor.

“Geez,”
Reno said, looking at the photos.

Tommy
hurried to Reno’s side and grabbed them.
 
When he saw what was portrayed, his heart squeezed.

“No,”
he said out loud.

“What
are they?
 
Some old photos of you and
Shanks?”

“Photos,
yes,” Tommy said, reviewing each one.
 
“But not old.
 
These were taken a
few weeks ago, when I was in Sydney.”

“Australia?”
Reno asked.
 
“But I thought you were with
Grace then, Tommy.
 
I thought you and
Shanks were finished a long time ago.”

“We
were,” Tommy said.
 
“We are.”
 
Then he exhaled.
 
“She came to my hotel room.”

“In
Australia?”

“Yeah.
 
She bribed one of the cleaning crew or
something and was naked in my bathroom when I got out of the shower.”

“That
bitch,” Reno said, shaking his head.
 
“So
what happened?
 
Please don’t tell me you
fucked her, Tommy, please don’t tell me that.”

“I
kicked her out.
 
But these photos, of me
naked and coming toward her, and lifting her from her chair, and slamming her
against the door, looks so damning.”

“Yeah,”
Reno said.
 
“They look like you’re in the
throes of passion with that witch.”

“But
I’m not.
 
These pics don’t capture my
anger.
 
I was throwing her out of the
room, not keeping her in.”

Reno
shook his head.
 
“Shanks is the best
button I’ve ever seen.
 
Great on the
field of battle.
 
But as a human being, I
wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.”

But
Tommy was in deep thought.
 
“She knew
about Lindsey,” he said.

Reno
looked at him.
 
“Shanks knew?”

“Yeah.
 
We were dating not long after I ended it with
Sheila.”

“And
you told Shanks about her?”

“After
she went missing, yes.
 
I told her.”

“That’s
why your people turned up nothing on Herns.
 
It was Shanks rehashing the case. Shanks was the feeder.”