TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART (4 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Grace
stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom and turned side to side
as she looked at the deep gray skirt, and blue blouse tucked-in, that she had
just put on.
 
The skirt was just above
her knees, tight and snug and tailored to fit her small, curvaceous body.
 
She placed her hand on her stomach.
 
She remembered Reno Gabrini, Tommy’s cousin
and best friend, joking about how Tommy loved his women to be tiny and if she
gained so much as an inch he would kick her to the curb.
 
But while they were in Vegas, even Tommy
noticed that she had gained a few pounds.
 

But
he, instead, said it was a good thing.
 

“I
don’t want you skinny,” he had said.
 
Which was a remarkable thing to say to Grace, since most of the previous
girlfriends she’d ever known him to have were actual models or had very small,
model-type figures.
 
She was the lone
exception.

She
looked at her smooth, dark-brown skin and her big, brown eyes in the mirror
before her.
 
She looked at the way her
hair rolled down to her shoulders in waves of big curls and bounciness that
framed her face in a way that made her almost look sexy.
 
Almost
,
she thought with a smile.
 

Then
she thought about last night.
 
And looked
at that rock again.
 
After their trip to
Vegas, where ShoShawna Shanks, Tommy’s ex-fiancée and a woman who had been
causing all kinds of trouble for them, was killed, she had expected Tommy to be
cautious.
 
She had expected him to
reassure her about their relationship and that she was the one he wanted, but
she expected him to take it even slower.
 
But he, instead, got in a hurry.

“Will
you make a decent man out of me, Grace,” he had asked, “and marry me?”
 

She
remembered staring at him, as if she was weighing the question, although she
wasn’t.
 
She was weighing him.
 
She was taking the measure of this man’s core
and was deeming him to be exactly the man she wanted to spend the rest of her
life with.
 
And she said yes.
 
Without reservation.
 

And
then, later still, after they had made love like two teenagers and she had
fallen asleep, she woke up briefly to find him seated in a chair by the
bed.
 
He was half-dressed, in his pants,
but his shirt was wide open, and he was staring at her.
 
What she loved about Tommy was that he didn’t
try to smile or pretend to be insanely happy when she opened her eyes.
 
His look was too grave.
 
And she understood why immediately.
 
This proposal was a major undertaking for
him, and he undoubtedly feared, as she did, that he could blow it.
 

She,
instead, decided to not even go there.
 
“You’re still here,” she said.

“Yep,
I haven’t left yet.”

“It’s
only Thursday night.
 
You aren’t due back
to work until Monday.
 
Why don’t you
spend the night?”

“Would
love to.
 
But I need to check on some
things at the office early in the morning.
 
You need your rest.
 
Between
giving you those shares in Trammel and the proposal, that was a lot I laid on
you last night.
 
I want you to rest.
 
I’ll come over to get you tomorrow morning,
after I leave the office.”

Grace
smiled.
 
“What are we going to do?” she
asked.
 
“I haven’t had a Friday off work
in so long I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

“I
know what to do with you,” he said with a smile, “so don’t worry about that.”

“Yes,
sir,” she replied.

“How
did you sleep?”

Grace
stretched her naked body beneath the sheet.
 
“Fabulous,” she said with a grin.
 
“The best fuck, I mean sleep, I’ve ever had.”

Tommy
grinned and then laughed outright.
 
“Yeah, me too,” he said with a lift of his eyebrows.
 

“So,
Mr. Gabrini,” Grace asked, “what time should I be ready tomorrow?”

“Be
dressed and ready to go by noon.”

“Oh,
okay.
 
I get to sleep in for a change.
 
Wonderful.”
 
Then she stared at him.
 
He looked
so sexy, she thought, so buff, as he sat there.
 
“I’m going to miss you while we’re apart,” she said with a smile.

Tommy
looked at her soft, pretty face.
 
He
wasn’t smiling, however.
 
This was all
too real for him.
 
“Yeah?”

“Oh,
yeah.”

He
looked at the outline of her naked body beneath those sheets.
 
And just like that he began to get an
erection.
 
“Come and show me how much,”
he said with that hooded look she knew so well.

Instead
of playing around with him or pretending to need clarification, she got her
naked brown body out of bed and walked over to Tommy.
 
He pulled her onto his lap, and held her in
his arms.
 
Grace remembered how
comfortable she felt.
 
How relaxed and
protected.
 
And although he eventually
unzipped his pants, pulled his already aroused penis out, and guided it deep
inside of her yet again, she was more in tuned with his arms around her.
 
She loved his arms around her.
 
His cock might have warmed her insides, but
his loving arms warmed her all over.
 
And
that warmth caused her to fall right back asleep, with the feel of his dick
massaging her pussy, while the feel of his arms massaged her heart.

When
she woke back up, she was back in bed, her pussy cleaned and dry, and he was
gone.
 
She thought she remembered a kiss
on the forehead, and the sound of Tommy talking and then the door closing, but
she wasn’t sure.
 
She fell asleep
again.
 
And then Nayla’s early morning
banging on her front door woke her right back up.

Now
she had prepped and showered and was fully dressed, ready to face the world,
not alone anymore, but with her future husband at her side.
 
On Monday morning she would be in the board
room facing the astonished, maybe even hostile faces of the people who used to
be her superiors.
  
On Monday morning she
would assume command of Trammel Transport.
  
It was a company she worked for, as Jillian Birch’s assistant and later
as her chief of staff, ever since she graduated college.
 
It was a company, thanks to Tommy’s
generosity, that she now controlled.

And
even as she continued to admire her ring in the mirror, despite the fact that
she should have been in the lobby of her apartment building five minutes ago,
her phone rang.
 

“Hi,
Tommy,” she said without waiting to make sure it was him.

“Are
you ever on time?” he asked her irritably.

“Sorry.
 
I was daydreaming.
 
I’m on my way down now.”

“Daydreaming
about what?” he asked.

She
looked at the ring again and smiled.
 
“I’m on my way down now,” she said again.

“Then
get on your way, Grace.
 
Don’t make me
come up there and get you,” he warned.

She
laughed, but she knew Tommy.
 
She grabbed
her purse and hurried out of her apartment, just the same.

She
was surprised to see him standing in the lobby of her apartment building when
the elevator doors opened.
 
He usually
waited in the car, usually because he was on the phone handling some business,
whenever he came to pick her up.
 
But not
this morning.
 
This was the morning after
his proposal, and already Grace could see that change, that elevation, in her
status.
 

To
see him standing there waiting for her thrilled Grace so much that she couldn’t
even try to hide her glee.
 
He looked so
elegant to her, in his tailored silk suit and undeniable beauty, and it amused her
even more when she noticed the women around the lobby taking sly glances at
him.
 
Some were even blatant and not sly
at all.
 
But she didn’t even sweat it.
 
That ring gave Grace all kinds of
courage.
 
He was hers.
 
And she could hardly contain her happiness.

“About
time,” he said with a big smile of his own as she hurried over to him.
 
He loved the way she seemed so thrilled to
see him.
 
He loved that.

He
placed his hands on her arms and kissed her on the lips.
 
Last night, after he made love to her for the
second time and cleaned her up and put her back to bed, he lingered before he
left.
 
He felt a strong need to
pray.
 
And he did.
 
He prayed for the wisdom to take care of her
right.
 
But even after that he remembered
how burdened he felt.
 
How afraid he
felt.
 
Now he was looking her dead in her
sparkling brown eyes, glad to have her in the flesh once again.
 
“How did you sleep?” he asked her.

“Great,”
she said.
 
“You?”

“Great,”
he said too, showing no signs of regret about his monumental decision last night,
which pleased her.
 
“Ready?” he then
asked as he glanced down at her outfit.
 

“I
am,” she replied.
 

He
placed his hand in the small of her back and escorted her, to many prying and
envious eyes, out of the lobby and up to his waiting limousine.
 
She knew her dress style wasn’t exactly up to
his standards yet.
 
Tommy didn’t own a
stitch of clothing that wasn’t high fashion and ultra-expensive, when almost
her entire wardrobe fit just the opposite description.
 
And that worked for her, for all of her adult
life, just fine.
 
She loved her simple
tastes.
 
But now that she wasn’t just
Tommy’s girlfriend anymore, but was now his fiancée, she knew she had to step
up her game.
 
She didn’t only represent
herself anymore.
 
She now, without any
shadow of any doubt, represented him.

After
they sat in the limo, and the driver closed the door, got back in behind the
wheel, and then began driving them in a slow drive, Grace sat patiently beside
Tommy as he answered what he said was a call he had to take.
 
He even pulled a file from his briefcase, and
then put on his reading glasses, as he reviewed figures in the documents for
whoever was on the phone.
 

Grace
looked at him as he talked on that telephone.
 
Although he was a lean man, his biceps were so muscular that they showed
through the contours of his suit coat.
 
And although he was a very wealthy man, he was one of the hardest
working human beings she’d ever known.
 
He earned every dime.
 
Which made
her respect him even more.
 
She knew what
she had on her hands.
 
She knew that this
beautiful man with EVERYTHING going for him had chosen her above all the
others, and had chosen her for reasons she doubted she’d ever figure out.
 

Her
friends had their theories, of course.
 
Every one of them seemed to believe it was because she wasn’t like any
of his other women.
 
They’d never admit
it to her face, but they were convinced it had everything to do with her
looks.
 
She was pretty, they’d all quickly
point out, but she had more of an untarnished, innocent vibe about her than
pure attractiveness.
 
And purely good
looking men often got tired of fucking purely good looking women.
 
And since Tommy had previously only gone for
the tall, lithe, black beauty supermodel types in the past, he was now starved
for something different.

Grace
believed that might have a little to do with it.
 
She was, after all, of a different variety
than Tommy’s previous preferences.
 
But
there was more to it than that.
 
There
had to be, she thought, as he finally concluded his phone conversation.

When
he hung up the phone, he pulled a flash drive out of his briefcase.
 
“Here,” he said as he handed it to her.