Tommy Gabrini 3: Grace Under Fire (The Gabrini Men Series) (6 page)

“He
was wrong to say that, and I’ll make certain he understands that.”

“But
that’s how everybody treats me!
 
And it
starts at the top.
 
They see you babying
me, so that treat me like some baby.
 
It’s ridiculous, Tommy.
 
I have
employees.
 
I run an entire company.
 
I can’t allow my employees to see me in that
kind of light.
 
But when you hire a CFO,
without even discussing it with me, they won’t see me in any other light.
 
I’m Tommy’s girl.
 
In their eyes, that’s all I’ll ever be. You
made me majority shareholder.
 
You made
me CEO.
 
I’m nothing without you.
 
That’s how they will always see me.”

Tommy
stood there, and for the first time in their marriage Grace felt as if she was
getting through to him.
 
He opened his
suit coat and placed both hands on his hips.
 
“Protectiveness gone amuck,” he said with a smile that barely reached
his eyes.
 

Grace
strained out a smile too.
 
“Completely
amuck,” she replied.
 
“All I want is to
be your partner.
 
Not your child.
 
I want you to trust that I can handle it.”

But
Tommy looked at her.
 
“I know you can
handle it,” he said.
 
“But I don’t want
to see you hurt, or make the same mistakes I made.”

“I
understand that.”

“And
you need to also understand that at the end of the day, what I say goes.
 
Not just for myself, but for both of us.
 
And that includes every aspect of your life,
Grace.
 
I’m older than you, I’ve been a Gabrini
far longer than you ever will be, I know what’s behind those corners you’re
about to walk around.
 
Reno and Sal may
want their women to discover it for themselves, to jump out in that lake and
see what’s out there, but I’m not them.
 
You aren’t discovering that craziness at all if I can help it.
 
I’m keeping you out of it.”

Then
he exhaled.
 
“But when it comes to
Trammel, you’re right.
 
I have to let you
make those decisions.
 
And I will.”

Grace
felt hopeful.
 
“Including having final
say on CFO?”

Tommy
nodded.
 
“Including that, yes.
 
I’ll let Brad know you have final
approval.
 
I only ask that you at least
give him equal consideration, even if he’s my personal choice.”

Tommy
didn’t really want to cede even that much ground, and she knew it.
 
“I’ll definitely consider Mr. Michelin,” she
promised.
 
Then she smiled.
 
“And thank-you.
 
You’ve just made me very happy.”

Tommy
wrapped his arms around her slender waist.
 
She didn’t know how much it meant to him to know that she was
happy.
 
“I’m looking out for you,
darling,” he said to her.
 
“Sometimes I
overdo it, I know I do, but I don’t want you to ever feel the burden of being a
Gabrini.
 
You saw how Trina had to go
through the fire.
 
I don’t ever want that
to happen to you.”

Grace
understood what he meant.
 
Reno’s wife,
Katrina Gabrini, had been through so much because of her husband’s mob
connections and enemies.
 
Tommy wanted to
keep her from hurt, harm, and danger.
 
She understood that.
 
But she was
no fool.
 
Being a Gabrini was no cakewalk
for anybody, why did Tommy think it could ever be for her?

He
moved his face closer to hers.
 
“I love
you, Grace,” he said.
 
“Don’t you ever
forget that.”

“I
love you too,” she said, as he began kissing her.
 
“Even though they say I don’t deserve
you.”
 
She lifted her chin, so that he
could kiss her neck too.

“Even
though,” he said, kissing her neck, “I’m the one who is undeserving.
 
I’m the one who don’t deserve you.”
 
He found her lips again and began kissing her
so hard that her back hit the door. Nobody made her feel the way Tommy
did.
 
Sex was his strength.
 
That was why all those women wanted to be
with him so badly.
 
Not just because he
was eye candy, but because he was even better bed candy.
 

“I
don’t deserve your love,” he said as he began unbuttoning her blouse.
 
“I don’t deserve your sex,” he said as he
began lifting her bra.
 
“But I’m going to
have you anyway.”

Grace
smiled through the growing sensual feelings.
 
“There you go again,” she said.
 
“Still possessive.”

“That’s
because,” he said, as he slid her body up the door enough for his mouth to
reach her breasts, “these are mine.”
 
He
began sucking them hard.
 
“The day you
married me,” he said between sucks, “they became mine.”
 
He was becoming more of a breast man every
day.
 
Made no bones about it.
 
And he was sucking hers raw.

She
leaned her head back as Tommy kept fondling them, sucking them, kissing and
biting them.

“You
own them,” she was saying.

“Every
inch of them,” he said back.
 

And
to prove his point he sucked and bit them so hard she had to hold onto his hair
to keep from screaming out.

As he
continued to suck her, he slid her skirt up and tore her panties at the
seat.
 
And began to massage her.
 
She ran her fingers through his silky hair
and closed her eyes to the enormity of the sensations.
 

As his
own sensations increased, urgency overtook him.
 
He wanted entry and he wanted it now.
 
Forget that they had made love last night.
 
Forget that he had sucked her pussy almost
raw this morning.
 
He wanted her
again.
 
He wanted her now.
 
He unzipped, pulled out his already fully
aroused penis, and pushed it inside of her with an achingly sweet thrust.
 

He
started fucking her right away, with that odd kind of control Tommy was known
for.
 
With urgency, but never with
desperation.
 
With great passion, but never
with brutality.
 
He pushed deeper and
deeper inside of her until he hit her familiar spot and found his rhythm.
 
And he fucked her with superior strokes.
 
He took her there.
 

She
held on, as her body was rocking from his pounding, until they both came.
 
She loved when they came together.
 
She wrapped her arms around him, panting, as
he continued to fuck her hard.
 
She held
on as he poured out deep inside of her.
 
He poured until he had nothing left to pour out.
 
And slowly, very slowly, their euphoria began
to ebb, and they were only able to remain standing by leaning onto each other.

Sex
with Tommy.
 
There were no words to
describe it.
 
There was no feeling like
it.
 
But that was becoming the scary part
for Grace.
 
Because she knew what she
had.
 
She knew how he made her feel.
 
How any woman could experience Tommy the way
she was experiencing him, and give that up without a fight to the death, was
the mystery of mysteries to her.

FOUR

After
removing her torn underwear and cleaning her up, Tommy walked his wife out of
his office.
 
Grace felt as if every one
of his assistants knew exactly what they had been doing, by the way they were
staring at them, but she was still feeling the effects of what he did to her to
care what they thought.
 
Tommy placed her
arm through his arm and proudly walked with her to the elevator.
 

Walking
with Tommy always made her feel as if she was walking with some superstar, by
the double-takes women always gave him.
 
But Tommy pulled her closer, as if he was just as proud walking with
her, and the way he made her feel warmed her.
 
It almost made her hate arguing with him to begin with.

They
took the elevator downstairs, to the huge lobby of the Gabrini Corporation.
 
Almost every junior executive they passed
knew them and spoke, and Grace was amused that their entire walk through the
lobby was a rhythm of one step, then a greeting, one step, another greeting.
 
By the time they walked out of the revolving
lobby doors and across the sidewalk, where Grace’s Audi RS5 was parked at the
curb, she felt exhausted.

“You
need a new car,” Tommy said as he opened the driver’s side door.

Grace
couldn’t believe it.
 
“New?
 
You just brought me this car a year ago,
Tommy.
 
This car is new!”
 
When she realized he was joking, she pushed
him.

He
smiled.
 
“I just want the best for you,”
he said as she got in behind the wheel.

“Not
possible,” she said.
 
“I already have the
best.
 
And it sure as hell ain’t a car.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“I love you, lady,” he
said.
 
They kissed, and then she was
gone.

Tommy
watched her leave, and became upset that she had sped off and wasn’t exactly
driving cautiously.
 
Then he caught
himself.
 
If it were up to him, she would
always drive as if she was driving Miss Daisy everywhere she went.
 
“She knows what she’s doing,” he said aloud,
reminding himself, and then headed back into his building.

In
Paris, Alexandria Dawse sat in Deena Driscoll’s office and rolled her
eyes.
 
She didn’t want to hear it.
 
Not any of it.
 
“I know he’s your old friend,” she said.
 
“I know you and Tommy go back a long, long
way.
 
You never fail to tell me so.”

Deena
smiled.
 
She owned one of the most
renowned model management firms in the world, and was once herself a supermodel
of great renown, but little Miss Alex always got under her skin.
 
She was her favorite model by far, but she
still was a pain in the ass.
 
“I also
tell you often,” Deena said, her native French accent heavy, “that you’re
wasting your time with him.
 
He’s married
now.”

Alex
frowned.
 
“So!
 
That means nothing to me!
 
She’s nothing to me!”

“Beau
left you.
 
It’s terrible, but it doesn’t
mean you can now have Tommy again.
 
That’s not how it works.
 
Cut your
losses and move on, Alex.
 
Tommy has
moved on.
 
That is my advice to you.”

“Bad
advice,” Alex said as she stood up.
 
“Is
there anything else you wanted?”

Deena
smiled.
 
“Why do you young girls have so
little sense?”

“I’m
going to have Tommy, Deena, whether you like it or not.
 
You can stop giving me jobs, you can try to
blackball me, I do not care.
 
I’m going
to have Tommy.
 
Now is there anything
else you wanted?”

“You
have a photo shoot this afternoon.”

“I
already know that.”

“Be
on time.”

“I
always am.”

Deena
stared at her.
 
“Why do you do it?” she
asked her.

Alex looked
at her.
 
“Why do I do what?”

“Want
the unobtainable?
 
Want what you cannot
have?”

“The
same reason you want me,” Alex said.
 
“I
want the best.”

Deena
smiled.
 
Looked down Alex’s long, thin
body.
 
“I’m the best,” she said.

“Once
upon a time you were.
 
But no more.
 
You’re old now.
 
Who would want you?”

Deena’s
smile left.
 
And she waved Alex
away.
 
“Leave,” she said.
 
“Be a fool.
 
But not with me.”

“So
I’m fired?”
 
Alex asked this with a smile
because she knew Deena would never fire her.

Deena
stared at her
 
“You like to torment me,
don’t you?
 
You know how I feel about
you, but yet you torment me.
 
Do whatever
you want.
 
Just don’t include me in your
little schemes.”

Since
Alex never had any intention of including her anyway, she gladly left her office.

Later
that same day, however, she did try to include one additional person.
 
She got out of her Saab, walked up to the car
parked two cars away from hers, and got into the front passenger seat.
 
She handed the driver a photograph.
 
Of Grace.

The
man looked at the picture.
 
“This her?”

“That’s
her.”

“Who
is she?”

“Grace
McKinsey.
 
She may go by Gabrini now.”

The
man looked at Alex.
 
“Gabrini?
 
She’s a Gabrini?”

“Yes.
 
Tommy married her, if you can believe it.”

The
man began shaking his head and handed the photo back to her.
 
“I need the dough,” he said, “but I’ll never
be crazy enough to need it that badly.”

Alex
was floored.
 
“What are you talking
about?”

“Goodbye,
Alex.”

“What?”

“She’s
a Gabrini, that’s what.
 
Those Gabrinis
are insane! I’m not fucking around with one of their women!
 
Never!
 
Now get out.
 
Whatever you scheme
up, keep me out of it.”

Alex
was angry beyond measure.
 
“You are such
a loser,” she said, grabbing the photo and getting out of the car.

“Yes,
I am,” the man said.
 
“But I’m a loser with
good sense.
 
Goodbye,” he said again,
when she slammed his door.
 

Marie
Knox sat at the small table inside the downtown Seattle coffee shop.
 
Deslyn Montgomery, sipping a latte, was
sitting at the table with her.
 
They were
gorgeous black women, both models and successful in their own right.
 
They were Tommy’s local loves, as they called
themselves.
 
But that was all before he
married Grace.

“It’s
still unbelievable,” Deslyn said.
 
“Tommy
Gabrini actually got married.
 
I
absolutely expected that so-called engagement to be some kind of a farce.
 
But he’s actually married.”

“And
to that mouse of all people,” Marie said.

“Yes.
 
That too.
 
The woman he married was the real farce, in my view.”

“She’s
not remarkably beautiful.”

“Nowhere
near it.”

“We
were his two favorites anyway.
 
I can’t
speak for those women he might have been screwing with around the world, but
here in Seattle, yes.
 
We were the top
two.”

“The
double queens,” Deslyn said, and they smiled and high-fived.

 
“I don’t want to lose that,” Marie said,
turning serious again.
 
“I can’t lose
him.”

“I
agree.”
 
Then Deslyn looked at
Marie.
 
“But I’m sure you have a plan.”

“She’s
weak.
 
She won’t hang around under
pressure.
 
We put a little heat to her,
she’ll fold like an accordion and get out of our way.”

“She’ll
leave Tommy?
 
Not a chance!”

“She
will leave, I tell you!
 
She can’t stand
the heat, not a woman like her.
 
She’s
not sophisticated enough to realize what she has.
 
She won’t fight.
 
She’ll fold and run.”

Deslyn
shook her pretty head.
 
The fact that
they would have to battle it out was the crime for her.
 
“What was Tommy thinking?” she wondered
aloud.
 
“Why would he marry someone that
is so obviously different from us?”

“My
similar thoughts exactly,” Marie echoed.
 
“I mean, when he wasn’t with me, but was spending time with you for
example, I understood it.
 
I saw the
attraction immediately.
 
But her?
 
She’s completely different from us in every
conceivable way.
 
We’re known for our
beauty and our height.”

“She’s
not known for anything.”

“We carry
ourselves with great dignity and sophistication, as if we own the world.”

“She
carries herself with great trepidation and indifference, as if we own
her.”
 

They
laughed.

“We’re
super-gorgeous.”

“She’s
not super anything.”

“She’s
nothing,” Marie said.
 
“She’s
nobody.
 
She’s nothing like us.
 
What, I will continue to say until the day I
die, was Tommy Gabrini thinking?”

Then
Deslyn thought about it herself, and laughed.

“What?”
Marie asked.

“Maybe,
just maybe, that he picked her because she wasn’t like us.
 
That as we prop ourselves up and deride and
excoriate her, we may just be, within our excoriation, revealing exactly why
Tommy chose her instead of us.”

But
Marie would have none of that, not even as a joke.
 
“Nonsense,” she said.
 
“There is nothing about that former assistant
that could rival us.
 
It’s a mistake on
Tommy’s part,” she added.
 
“Pure and
simple.”

Deslyn
sipped more coffee, and then nodded her head.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“A mistake.
 
Has to be.”

Then
she sipped yet more coffee and tried, throughout their continued conversation,
to not look the other woman directly in her eyes.

“He’s
here,” Peter Harpton said, and Amy Richards looked out of the window too.
 
They were on the outskirts of Seattle, in a
small, obscure motel, determined to keep the meeting as private as they
possibly could.
 
Tommy’s Ferrari had just
driven up, and he stepped out buttoning his suit coat.

“He’s
hot,” Amy said, smiling favorably at him.
 
“You weren’t exaggerating at all, Peter.”

“I
don’t exaggerate.
 
If we get him on board
we’ve got a treasure.”

“A
very attractive treasure.
 
But you still
haven’t told me his Achilles Heel.”

“He
doesn’t have one.”

“Peter!”

“Okay,
okay!
 
If I had to pick anything, I would
say women.”

Amy
looked at him.
 
“Even after his marriage?”

“Not
after, no.
 
At least I don’t think so.”

“He
was a bachelor.
 
That’s not a
problem.
 
I want to know what is the
man’s weakness now.”

“He
favors black women.”

“So?”

“He
married a black woman.”

“In
this day and age?
 
Please, Peter, come
on.
 
That’s not a problem either.
 
Unless there’s something wrong with the
woman.
 
Is there something wrong with
her?”