Tommy Gabrini 3: Grace Under Fire (The Gabrini Men Series) (4 page)

“Did
you behave yourself while I was gone?”

She
smiled.
 
“You didn’t answer mine
either.
 
Did you behave yourself while
you were gone?”

“Yes,”
he said, unequivocally.

“Yes
for me too,” she responded.
 
“But let’s
get specific.
 
How many females did you
have to turn down?”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“Who said I had to turn down
any?”

“So
you’re telling me that no female, this entire week, came on to you?”

Tommy
looked at her.
 
“How many men came on to
you?”

“They
wouldn’t dare!
 
They know I’m married to
Tommy Gabrini.”

Tommy
liked that answer.
 
“And those females
know I’m married to Grace Gabrini.”

But
he and Grace both knew better than that.
 
“They know it all right,” Grace said.
 
“I’ve been getting more and more phone calls lately.”

“I
told your staff to do a better job screening your calls.”

“And
they have.
 
But those females can be very
convincing, Tommy.
 
You wasn’t fooling
around with any dummies.
 
They pretend to
be the CEOs of some of our major contracts, and they know I have to take those
calls.
 
I can’t risk losing business like
that if I don’t take the call.
 
Then
they’d lay it on me.
 
Stay away from Tommy.
 
You can’t have, Tommy
.
 
Blah blah blah.”

“And
what did you say?
 
Other than blah blah
blah?”

“
I have him already, bitch
, what do you
think I said?
 
But I don’t know.
 
When we were dating, I’d get the phone calls
and some visits too, but it was no major deal.
 
But now that we’re married?
 
Geez.
 
Some of those women are seriously furious
with my ass.”

Tommy
gathered her closer.
 
“I’m sorry about
that, babe,” he said.
 
“When I find out
who’s behind it, don’t you worry.
 
I’ll
put a stop to it.”

Grace
smiled.
 
“You mean you’ll eventually
figure out which one of the hundreds of women from your past is bothering me
now?”

Tommy
slapped her naked backside.
 
“Very
funny,” he said with a smile.

Although
she laughed too and laid back down against him, her butt was still stinging
from the blow.
 

Later
that night, when Tommy woke up, he reached over and realized Grace was no
longer in bed.
 
He could hear her voice,
out on the balcony, as he turned onto his back.
 
His body was so tired that he nearly dozed off again, but her voice woke
him up again.
 
He looked over at the
digital clock on the nightstand.
 
When he
saw that it was 3a.m., he frowned.
 
What the hell
, he thought.

He
got out of bed.
 
He was naked, but it was
his house, his balcony.
 
Nobody had any
business anywhere near his property this time of night.

When
he stood at the French doors and looked out onto the balcony, he saw Grace
seated on the lounger, snuggled in her robe, talking on the home phone as she
wrote notes in a booklet.
 

“Take
that down too,” she was saying.
 
“And
tell Maurice to memo it to Logistics.”

When
she looked over and saw that Tommy was standing there, she smiled.
 
“You’re awake.”

But
Tommy didn’t return her smile.
 
It was
too damn late.
 
“What are you doing?” he
asked groggily as he folded his arms in protection against the mild night
breeze.
 

Grace
looked at his dangling penis, and then up into his eyes.
 
“Trying to do some prep work for a meeting I
have later today.
 
What are you
doing?
 
Put on some clothes.”

“It’s
3 o’clock in the morning, Grace.
 
Hang up
the phone and come to bed.”

“In a
little bit, I will.
 
I’m almost done.”

But
Tommy was not deterred.
 
“You’re done
now.
 
Every night since I’ve been away
it’s the same thing.
 
Up until two and
three in the morning, then up again at seven.
 
You’re going to drop from exhaustion if you don’t get more rest.”

“I
understand that.
 
But I have to finish
this.”

“Finish
it later, Grace.
 
Now come on to bed.”

She
held up a finger to Tommy, which infuriated him.
 
“Read that back to me, Renay,” she said into
the phone.

Tommy
immediately walked over to her, grabbed the phone from her hand, and slammed it
onto the receiver.
 
“Let’s go,” he said
firmly.

Grace
looked at him angrily.
 
“Why did you do
that?”

“It’s
three a.m., Grace, why do you think?
 
Get
to bed and get some sleep.”

It
was his overprotectiveness again.
 
It was
becoming a consistent theme in their marriage.
 
“I’m not a child, Tommy.
 
I can
manage on four hours’ sleep.”

Tommy
lifted her chin up to his face.
 
“These
bags under your eyes can manage too.
 
And
you’re losing weight.”

Grace
smiled and tried to play it off.
 
“With
all of those supermodels you’ve dated, I thought you liked thin women.”

“You
thought wrong.
 
I like you.
 
Just the way you are.
 
And I don’t want you unhealthy.
 
So let’s go.”

“Okay,
I’ll go.”
 
She picked the phone back up
again.
 
“But first I’m going to call
Renay back and remind her to---”

But
Tommy wouldn’t let her finish.
 
If she
wasn’t going to look out for herself, he was
 
more than willing to do it for her.
 
He took the phone from her, hung it back up, and grabbed her by the arm,
lifting her from her chair.

“Okay,”
she insisted, pulling her arm away from him.
 
“I’m going.”
 
She began heading
for the entrance.
 
“But I don’t like it.”

“It’s
not about what you like,” he said, following her.
 
“It’s about what you need.
 
You need your rest.
 
You’ve been pulling these crazy hours all
this week.
 
It’s becoming a bad habit.”

She
stopped in her tracks, causing him to bump into her.
 
She turned around.
 
“How would you know what I’ve been doing all
week?
 
You weren’t here and I haven’t
told you.”
  
But she figured out the
answer almost as quickly as she had asked the question.
 
“Henry told you no doubt.
 
Your old faithful servant.”

“He’s
not my servant, and keep it moving.” He said this, not only to get her to bed,
but to get his naked body out of the chill of the night air.
 
He placed his hand on the small of her back
and ushered her into the bedroom, closing the doors behind them.
 

“It’s
not fair, Tommy,” she said, looking at him.

 
Tommy remembered how Alex Dawse had said the
same thing to him in that hotel lobby in Paris.
 
He understood Alex’s complaint, because he was never trying to be fair
to her.
 
But Grace?
 
She didn’t have a leg to stand on.
 
“I want my wife to be well rested and of good
health, and you call that being unfair?”
 
He walked over to her side of the bed and pulled the covers back.
 
“Then I’m going to remain unfair, so get used
to it.”

She
began untying her robe.
 
“You would have
a fit if I did the same thing to you, and you know I’m right.
 
I was handling my business.”

“At
three in the morning?
 
I don’t think so.”

“So
you wouldn’t be pissed if you were in the middle of a phone conversation and I
hung up the phone?”

“Yes,
I would be pissed,” Tommy admitted, taking the robe from her.
 
She was now standing there as naked as he
was.

“Even
if it was three a.m., you’d still be pissed?”

“Even
then, yes.”

Grace
looked at him, amazed that he would admit it.
 
“Then why do you think it’s all right for you to do that very thing to
me?”

“Because
I’m your husband.”

That
was always his answer of late whenever they had any kind of dispute.
 
“I assumed we would be equal partners in this
marriage, Tommy.”

“We
are.”

Grace
couldn’t believe he said that.
 
“You must
be joking!
 
What’s equal about us?”

“You
now own everything I own.
 
Just by
becoming my wife.
 
That’s real equality,
not that wafer-thin, fifty-fifty bullshit you’re talking about.
 
You own it all now, Grace.”

Grace
couldn’t help but smile herself.
 
She was
still getting over the fact that she was married to this man.
 
“I’d rather own my right to take care of my
business anytime I choose.”

“You’ll
thank me for it when you aren’t sluggish and prone to make bad decisions later
today.”

She
got in bed and he pulled the covers over her naked body.
 
“I wouldn’t have been sluggish anyway,” she
said as he tucked her in.
 

Then
she smiled as he began walking to his side of the bed.
 
“I’ll bet it wasn’t even about me,” she
said.
 
“You wanted me off of that phone
because I was disturbing your sleep.”

Tommy
smiled himself, although he knew that was not it at all.
 
“Bingo,” he said, and Grace, laughing, took
her pillow and threw it at him.
 
He
ducked, surprising her.

“Damn,
you’re quick,” she said.
 

And
it was Tommy who got the last laugh.

THREE

It
was nothing like they thought it was going to be.
 
Grace stood at the head of the table and her
Logistics staff, all eleven of them, sat at the table, with an overflow around
the walls of the small conference room.
 
They stood defiant, it seemed to Grace, as if they knew she had nothing
on them and was wasting their time.
 
Although every one of them participated in the scheme.
  
Although every one of them were paid for
overtime they didn’t work.
 
But they
thought they were ingenious.
 
They cooked
the books to enhance their productivity, with their own internal audits
reflecting their lies, and they were certain that Grace would never be the
wiser.
 

But
Grace conducted her own internal review, and called this meeting after seeing
the results.
 
Results that were vastly
different than the audits on file.

At
the beginning of the meeting, Mia Landrieu, the supervisor, stood to her
feet.
 
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful,
Grace,” she started, then caught herself.
 
“I mean Mrs. Gabrini.”
 
Some of
her staff actually snickered.
 
This was
the kind of foolishness Grace was dealing with ever since she became the head
of Trammel.
 

Landrieu
went on.
 
“I don’t mean to be
disrespectful, but we don’t have time for any meeting.
 
My people need to be in the field making sure
the trucks are moving on time, and sitting up in here won’t move a damn thing.”

“Amen
to that,” a few of her people echoed.

“You
all of a sudden decide to call this meeting, pulling us away from our work, but
when there are clogs in the transport flow, who gets the blame?
 
Not you and your staff, but me and mine.”

Even
more
amens
from her staff.

“We
get the blame for it all.
 
So what I
suggest is that you meet with me, but allow my staff to go on about their
business.
 
The bottom line, that way, is
that my staff will,” the supervisor continued, but Grace cut her off.

“The
bottom line is that you need to sit down,” Grace said.

The
supervisor, not to mention the staff, looked at Grace as if she had lost her
mind. “Excuse me?”

“Sit
down,” Grace said bluntly.
 
She hated to
play the bitch, but ever since she took over Trammel she had been forced into
that role.
 
It bothered her greatly, but
she’d play it all day long if she had to.
 

The
supervisor hesitated, as she clearly did not like to take orders from anyone,
especially some upstart like Grace, but she eventually sat down.

Then
Grace took the floor.
 
“I was going to
come in here and inform you that the entire Logistics department will be under
my direct leadership.
 
I was going to
announce that Mrs. Landrieu will become a worker just as you are, and will
answer to me just as each and every one of you will.”

They
were stunned by such an announcement, and she had their rapt attention.

“I
was going to let you know,” Grace continued, “that the jig is up.
 
You all have lied.
 
You all have cooked the books.
 
You all have defrauded Trammel of vast sums
of overtime pay and I was going to make certain that each one of you reimbursed
Trammel for every dime.
 
That was what I
was going to do.”

Then
she exhaled.
 
She knew what she was about
to say would be controversial.
 
She knew
what she was about to say would not go over well with any of her other
department heads or workers.
 
They
already didn’t like her and viewed her as some piece of ass who slept with
Tommy Gabrini and was handed a company.
 
All of her work and effort meant nothing to them.
 
As far as they were concerned, she didn’t
earn a thing.
 
So she already knew they
didn’t like her.
 
And they didn’t have to
like her.
 
But they had to respect her.

“That
was what I had originally planned to come into this meeting and say to
you.”
 
Then she frowned.
 
“But I can’t do it.
 
Because what you did when you cooked those
books, when you lied about overtime, when you did everything in your power to
steal and steal and steal from my company, was orchestrated in such a way that
you were certain I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
 
Because every one of you were involved.
 
Because if I fired one, I had to fire all of
you, and how could I possibly fire an entire department, right?”

They
all looked at her, as if she was exactly right.
 
Who, in their right mind, would fire an entire department?

Grace
continued.
 
“I am firing the entire
department.
 
I have notified my staff to
begin the search immediately.
 
I have
notified Human Resources, as I am now notifying you, that each and every one of
you are fired.
 
Effective
immediately.
 
Pack your bags and get out
of my building, and get out now.”

Half
of them jumped from their seats, ready to hurt somebody, turning on their
partners in crime, while the other half turned on Grace, calling her every
manner of bitch and whore and every degrading word they could think of.

“And
if you think you can sabotage Trammel on your way out the door, think again,”
Grace made clear.
 
“I still have the
option of pressing criminal charges against each and every one of you, because
I have the proof.
 
And I will exercise
that option if you attempt anything at all other than leaving the
premises.
 
And leaving now.
 
Good morning,” Grace added, and left them to
their stupidity, and their outrage.
 

Later
that same day, after Grace had instructed three other department heads that
they and their staffs would now take on additional workloads until the new
staff were in place, she finally managed to sit down behind her desk.
 
Not to relax, but to review final status
agreements that had cleared Legal, and now had to clear her.
  
So she was still knee-deep in work when she
heard her office door open.

“Sorry
to disturb you,” her assistant said as she walked in.
 
But Grace did not bother to look up.
 
Mainly because Renay, her executive
assistant, knew how busy she was.
 
But
Renay said it again.

“Sorry
to bother you, ma’am,” she said, “but the new CFO would like to say hello.”

Grace
knew she was already distracted and probably didn’t hear that right, but she
looked up anyway.
 
Renay Ponder, her
thirty-year-old African-American assistant, was walking toward her desk with a
tall white man by her side.
 
He smiled
and spoke as soon as she looked up.

Grace
was taken aback.
 
And it wasn’t because
of his looks, although he was an obviously attractive man.
 
It was because of the fact that he was there
at all.
 
It was one thing for Renay to
barge in without permission, but it was another thing for her to bring a
stranger in with her.
 
Maybe Tommy was
right.
 
Maybe her staff was indeed too
lax.
 
“Hello,” Grace replied to his
greeting, unable to conceal her displeasure.

Brad
Michelin, the newly installed Chief Financial Officer at Trammel, was taken
aback himself.
 
Especially when Grace
looked up.
 
She was Tommy Gabrini’s wife?
 
This was the wife of the man who had been the
most sought-after bachelor in Seattle?
 
This was the wife of the man who had cornered the market on playing the
field?
 
He couldn’t believe it.
 
She wore reading glasses, her hair was hardly
freshly done, and her big brown eyes looked more puzzled than enchanting.
 
She was so different than the women he’d
known Tommy to favor that it threw him for a loop.
 
Those super-gorgeous, super-tall, supermodels
were Tommy’s pleasure.
 
But this woman,
though of African descent like the others, was small, wasn’t exactly
super-gorgeous, and was far younger than he expected.
 
And she bore a kind of understated innocence
that belied her power as the head of her own company.
 
She was, as he saw it, the polar opposite of
a Tommy Gabrini girl. “Looks as if we’re interrupting you,” he said.
 
“And please don’t blame your assistant for
that.
 
It’s on me.
 
I wanted to introduce myself, and get a feel
of the place.
 
I’m Brad Michelin.”
 
Brad extended his hand.

Grace
stood up and shook it.
 
“Grace Gabrini,”
she said.
 

And
he saw it.
 
As soon as she stood and
leaned toward him, shaking his hand, he saw what Tommy might have seen in
her.
 
He saw that vulnerability.
 
That sweetness.
 
That something about her specialness that
went far deeper than the mere look of her, and made him want to protect her
too.
 
“It’s so good to finally meet you,
Grace.”

 
“I’m afraid I mistook what my assistant
said.
 
I thought I heard her say you were
my new CFO.”

Brad
smiled. It wasn’t puzzlement, he decided, but sincerity in her big, bright,
beautiful eyes.
 
“You heard her
correctly.”

“But
that’s not possible.
 
I haven’t hired a
CFO.”

“He
says Mr. Gabrini hired him,” Renay volunteered, thrown by the news herself.

But
not nearly as thrown as Grace.
 
She
looked at Brad, who, in her estimation, came off like some smiling used car
salesman.
 
“Tommy hired you?”

“That
he did,” Brad said proudly.
 
“I’ve had a
working relationship with your husband for many years now.
 
He thought I would be a perfect fit.
 
He hired me before he left for Paris.”

But
Grace was still reeling to respond.
 
Tommy hired a CFO for
her
company?
 
Without so much as mentioning
it to her?

“Truth
is,” Brad went on, “I came a week earlier than my planned arrival.
 
But by your reaction, I came too soon.
 
So I do apologize for springing it on you
like this.
 
I honestly would have assumed
your husband would have notified you by now.”

Grace
would have assumed the same thing, but she wasn’t going there with this man
she’d just met.

Brad
saw her reluctance.
 
“I’ll tell you
what,” he suggested, “why don’t Renay here give me the grand tour, then show me
to my office, and I’ll be out of your hair.
 
How’s that?
 
Will that work?”

“No,
it will not,” Grace said firmly.
 
“I,
too, must apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, but until I have
an opportunity to review your selection, I’m going to have to ask you to leave
the premises.
 
Mr. Gabrini hired you, but
I haven’t made the final approval on that hire.”

Brad
continued to smile, but Grace could tell he didn’t like what he was
hearing.
 
And she was right.
 
He didn’t like it.
 
Tommy Gabrini ran the mammoth Gabrini
Corporation, which could swallow up this nothing company the way a shark could
swallow a fish, and she had the nerve to buck his authority?
 
To so much as question Tommy Gabrini’s authority?
 
Who the hell did she think she was?
 
“I was under the impression that Mr. Gabrini,
as chairman of the board here at Trammel, had final approval.
 
And since he hired me, and given who he is, I
was under the impression that I was hired in a
case closed, end of discussion
kind of way.”

She
wasn’t going to argue with this man about her own company, that would be
nonsensical.
 
“Mr. Gabrini will get in
touch with you after we’ve had a conversation,” she said.
 
“Have a nice day.”

Brad’s
soft green eyes gave her a hard look, but he kept that salesman smile.
 
“Certainly,” he said, not like a man who
agreed with her, but like a man who had no other choice but to agree.
 
“I’ll look forward to hearing from him.”
 
And then he slid right back out the way he came
in, with Renay escorting him out.