Romancing Tommy Gabrini (6 page)

Although
Grace continued to smile, Tommy could tell she didn’t like that comparison at
all.
 
Tommy knew Jilly.
 
He fully understood why she wouldn’t like it.

But
then dinner was served and that quick interaction would be the bulk of the
contact they would have for the rest of the evening.

Until
Cameron Birch showed up.

It
was after dinner and no-one had bothered to leave.
 
Grace was in her respective corner
entertaining her male admirers and taking occasional peeps at Tommy.
 
Tommy was freelancing, moving around, and
taking the odd peep at Grace.
 
For some
reason he wanted to get next to her, and to talk to her more.
 
But Candace, or some other woman, kept
intercepting him.

And
Jillian kept avoiding him.
 
He had
already informed her that he needed to speak with her, but she kept finding
somebody else who needed her attention and promised to get back to him.
 
She was doing her best to avoid him.
 
And he was allowing it for now.
 
But they would have their conversation.
 

He
had been buying up shares of Trammel from Jillian for years in an effort to
infuse some of his considerable capital into Jillian’s often struggling
business.
 
Not because he wanted some
alliance with her, but because her late husband Clive Birch used to be one of
his closest friends and had worked his ass off to make Trammel a successful
enterprise.
 
Tommy therefore had been her
silent partner for years.
 
But Tommy was
an odd venture capitalist.
 
He’d given
Jillian free reign to run her business.
 
And although it wasn’t turning any magnificent profits, it wasn’t
bleeding any money, either.
 

But
then he decided to dig deeper.
 
On his
orders his people began to conduct internal audits that uncovered widespread
and very disturbing ethical issues at Trammel that they felt needed to be
addressed by him.
 
And although Jillian
was ducking and dodging now, he was determined to corner her later.

And
then Cam Birch showed up, young, handsome, robust as all get out, and by his
interest in Grace alone forced Tommy Gabrini, who had every intention of staying
well out of it, to make a move.

CHAPTER THREE

Tommy
and most of the people in the room knew Cameron Birch to be a spoiled brat who
held the title of Vice President at Trammel, but rarely showed up for
work.
 
The fact that he would show up
drunk to his own mother’s dinner party when he knew how much Jillian cherished
decorum, was a new low even for him.
 
But
for Jillian’s sake everybody tried to ignore him, even Jillian tried.
 
Tommy especially wasn’t interested.
 
Until the blond-haired young man went over to
the one woman Tommy had internally separated for himself, and insisted she talk
to him.
 

Grace
fascinated Tommy.
 
Not just because she
was beautiful.
 
There were many beautiful
women in the room, including Candace.
 
But Grace didn’t bore him.
  
She
wasn’t trying to impress him with how wonderful a catch she would be or how he
would be out of his mind if he didn’t get to know her better.
 
She didn’t display any affectation or
flirtatiousness at all.
 
Which pleased
him mightily and made him more than a little curious to learn more about
her.
 
He found himself, slowly but
surely, working his way across the room to get by her side.

But
Cameron had beat him to the punch.
 
Tommy
had come close enough to hear their conversation, but a couple females had
intercepted him and were talking about how great they were even as his
attention was mainly focused on Grace.

What
he did manage to hear were repeated requests by young Cameron for a private
conversation.
  
But Grace wasn’t having
it.

“I
told you there’s nothing to talk about,” Grace responded calmly, although she
eased her arm out of Cameron’s grasp.

“You
can talk to me,” Cam said.
 
“All I’m
asking for is a minute of your time.
 
You
can give me a minute of your time.
  
For
old time’s sake, come on, Grace.
 
Let’s
talk about it.”

He
was begging her, and the liquor didn’t help.
 

Tommy
watched as Grace attempted to maintain her composure and make it clear at the
same time that she wasn’t interested in any conversation.
 
Especially with a drunk like him.
 
But like his mother, Cameron was very
persistent.
 
And he wouldn’t let up.
 
Until his mother herself intervened,
smilingly approaching the twosome with one of her
you two love birds take it outside
lines.

But
Grace, to Tommy’s delight, stood up for herself.
 
“There’s nothing to take outside,” she said
to Jillian.
 
“We have nothing to talk
about.”

“You’re
making a scene,” Jillian said to her chief of staff.
 
She was still smiling, but Tommy knew
Jillian.
 
Her anger was rising.
 
And when Grace continued to resist, Jillian’s
voice took on a harder edge.
 
“Take it
outside,” she said bluntly and in a way that brook no debate.

Grace
was irritated that she was being drawn into Cam’s nonsense again, but she also
didn’t want to agitate potential clients that she knew they desperately needed,
many of whom were beginning to notice her disagreement with Cam.
 
She owned ten percent stake in Trammel, which
meant she was determined to keep it a successful, viable company.
 
She took it outside.

Tommy
hated that Jillian had put Grace in that position, and he also hated that Grace
had given in to Jillian.
 
But if he had
been in Grace’s position he probably would have obeyed his boss also.
 
It had been so long since he was on somebody
else’s payroll that he knew it was easy to dismiss the importance of job
security.
 
And Grace McKinsey, he was
willing to bet, believed in security if she believed in anything.

But
the fact that she had gone outside with that lush of a son of Jillian’s still
made Tommy uneasy.
 
He knew it was none
of his business.
 
She could go outside
with whomever she wanted to go outside with.
 
But yet he found himself easing his way to the back window.
 
Those two women seemed offended that he had
moved on, but that didn’t stop them from continuing their tireless
self-promoting without him.

When
he looked out of the back window, he could see Grace and Cameron on the patio
having what appeared to be a very intense conversation.
 
Although he couldn’t hear what was being said
this time, he could tell that Cam was livid.
 
And he hated the way Cam’s hands kept touching Grace, as if she owed him
something and he was determined to extract his pound of flesh tonight.
 
And by his touching alone, Tommy was
relatively certain that the twosome had been lovers in the past, which was
amazing to him in and of itself.
 
He
couldn’t imagine a woman who seemed as sensible as Grace giving the time of day
to a clown like Cam.

It
wouldn’t be long, however, before Grace, after apparently saying all she planned
to say, turned to leave.
 
But Cameron
grabbed her by the arm and violently slung her back around.
 
For some strange reason Tommy felt as if
Cameron’s aggressive act was a personal affront to him and he stood erect,
ready to storm outside and set the young man straight.
 
But then Grace immediately slapped her
antagonist hard across his face, staggering him, and Tommy quickly realized
there was no need for any intervention.
 

Grace
told Cameron something else, something real good apparently because he didn’t
pursue her as she turned around again and headed back into the house.
 
Once she entered the home, she didn’t return
to the party.
 
She went, instead, into
the parlor in the far left end of the main room, and slammed the door.

Tommy
stared at Cameron, who started walking around the back patio cursing randomly
and running his hand through his hair.
 
What these girls saw in punks like him Tommy would never know.
 
And then he looked at that parlor door.
 
Again, it was none of his business.
 
It was obvious that she could take care of
herself.
 
But why, he wondered, did he
have this powerful urge to make sure she was okay?
 
Why didn’t he just go back to Candace or any
of the other women at the party who would love to have him in their
circle?
 

But
as the minutes ticked away, and he hadn’t made a move either way, his concern
continued to grow.
 
What if she was so
heartbroken that she was in that parlor doing herself some harm?
 
What if she was taking pills?
 
What if Jilly had a gun back there and she
was putting it to her head?

Then
Tommy had to smile at his own irrationality.
 
What if aliens landed on the rooftop and kidnapped her?
 
What if she lost her balance and caught
amnesia?
 
What if, what if, what if.
 
Because that was how ridiculous all of his
what ifs were beginning to sound.

But
as more minutes ticked away and she remained behind closed doors, he couldn’t
help it.
 
Nobody else seemed to care that
she had locked herself away.
 
Not even
Cam, who returned, huddled with his mother, and then left.
 
But for some reason Tommy cared.
 
He had to eyeball Grace for himself, to make
sure she was all right.
 
He didn’t know
why.
 
Not for a million bucks did he
understand why.
 
But he had to do it.

He
walked over to the parlor door and entered without knocking.
 
He could see Grace, who was standing at the
window, quickly turn away from him and wipe her eyes.
 
Tommy could have stepped back out and closed
the door, allowing her more time to heal.
 
But he didn’t.
 
A nice young lady
like her had no business crying over some loser like Cameron Birch, and he was
determined to make her understand that.
 
Why he would be so determined, he thought, had yet to be worked out.

He
walked over to the bar on the far side of the parlor and poured two small
glasses of wine.
 
He then walked over to
the window, stood beside her, and handed her a glass.

“Thank-you,”
Grace said softly as she accepted.

Tommy
looked at her.
 
She was so small and he
was so powerfully built that she seemed fragile beside him.
 
“You okay?” he asked her.

She
nodded.
 
“Yes,” she said and then sipped
from her glass of wine, as if to convince herself.
 
She held her glass, he noticed, with both
hands.

“Your
ex-beau I take it?”

Grace
looked at him, surprised that he would have made the connection between her tears
and Cam.
 
Then she nodded her head.
 
No sense denying it.
 
“Yes,” she admitted.

“Sorry
to hear that.”

Grace
didn’t understand.
 
“Sorry to hear what?”

“That
Cam Birch is any ex of yours.
 
You can do
better than that, young lady.”

Grace
stared at him.
 
He should know, she
thought.
 
A man as gorgeous as he was had
to be well experienced in matters of love.
 
She decided to smile.
 
“Oh, really
now?
 
I can do better?”

“Oh,
yes,” Tommy said, glancing down to make it clear to her that he was
interested.
 
And then he looked back into
her eyes.
 
She knew.
 
“You definitely can do better.
 
I know Cameron Birch.
 
You can do far better than that.”

Grace’s
eyes locked onto Tommy’s eyes.
 
Up close
his eyes appeared to be the color of violet.
 
“He’s old news, anyway,” she said.

Tommy
opened his jacket and slipped his hands into his pants pockets, revealing a
body so lean not an ounce of fat was visible.
 
Very nice sight indeed, Grace thought.