Romancing Tommy Gabrini (29 page)

“Tommy!”
she yelled and didn’t stop running until she was running up the steps, with him
hurrying toward her, and leaping into his arms. Tommy grabbed her and swung her
side to side.
 
When she phoned him and
told him what had happened, he headed back to the States without delay.
 
To be with her.

Jamie
and Nayla, who were walking toward the
 
house, were even more surprised than Grace to see him.

Jamie
leaned toward Nayla.
 
“I thought she said
he was in Australia hammering out some mega business deal,” he whispered.

“He
was,” whispered Nayla.
 
“But apparently
he came back to be with her.
 
That’s what
real men do, you know.
 
They stand by
their women.”

Jamie
looked at her. “Or their man,” he said, and Nayla rolled her eyes.

Later
that evening, in a hotel bed in town, Tommy pulled Grace into his arms and held
her all night long.
 
She fell asleep in
his arms.
   
There was a time when this
kind of night would have been out of the question for him.
 
He never slept beside a woman in his life
without fucking her.
 
Not ever.
 

But
all of that was before he met Grace.
 
And
tonight, Grace was in a state.
 
She had
no affection for her stepfather, but she was so hopeful that his death could
open the door for a better relationship with her mother.
 
But so far the prognosis was poor.
 
So Tommy dismissed his intense sexual
appetite and opted to hold her instead, and be there for her, and do everything
in his power to make sure she got her rest and didn’t overstress herself about
her mother’s unwillingness to change.

Tommy
also lay there, not only thinking about this sweet, kind woman he had in his
arms.
 
But also, he had to admit, he was
thinking about ShoShawna.
 
And that trick
she pulled in Sydney.
 
A part of him was
concerned for her, and the pain she allowed her promiscuity to shield.
 
But another part of him hated her.
 
He wasted so many years on an illusion.
 
She never was marriage material.
 
She never wanted to be.
 
And the only reason she had agreed to marry
him in the first place, he was now beginning to believe, was because she didn’t
want to lose any sexual relationship with him.
 
It was all about sex with Shanks.
 
Somehow he knew it all along.
 
It
might have been all about sex for him, too.

Grace
began stirring in her sleep.
 
Tommy held
her tighter.
 
She opened her eyes.
 
She looked terrified.

“What’s
the matter, babe?” he asked her.

“I
thought.. .
 
I thought the funeral . . .”

“What
about the funeral?”

“I
thought it wasn’t my stepfather’s funeral, but my mother’s.”

“Oh,
Grace.”

“And
she was dead and I still wasn’t able to get her to love me.
 
I kept trying, but I wasn’t able to do it.”

“Look
at me,” Tommy said and turned her toward him.
 
“Look at me, Grace.”

She
looked at him with puzzled eyes.

“Do
you love your mother?” he asked her.

She
nodded.
 
“Yes.
 
Of course I do.”

“Then
you’ve done all you can do for that relationship.
 
You love her.
 
Keep loving her.
 
Keep calling and
checking on her.
 
If she never, ever
return your affection, that can’t be on you.
 
It’s on her.
 
Because you’re
already doing all you can do.”

Grace
stared at him.
 
And tears began to appear
in her eyes.
 
Because he spoke the
truth.
 
She knew he spoke the truth.

“Oh,
Tommy!” she said, and fell into his arms.
 

Their
relationship seemed solid as a rock, she felt that night.

But
over the course of time, she began to wonder.
 
Their relationship remained close, but it
slowly began to show some strain.
 
It
started a few days after their return from Happy Valley.
 
Everything was still going well.
 
Tommy was extremely busy, in and out of town
often, and Grace was working hard to implement what Jillian called her new
“strategies for success” program.
 
Trammel lost revenue last fiscal year for the first time ever, and it
scared Jillian.
 
Tommy, she felt, now had
a real reason to initiate a hostile takeover and completely marginalize her.
 
So Grace was busy, too.
 

One
afternoon, while Grace was standing in the lobby of the LaBoray restaurant
waiting for Jamie, her lunch date, to show up, she saw something that confused
her.
 
She was on her cell phone with
Jillian about yet another change to the new policy, and she was only half
paying attention.
 
But when she finished
her call, and she placed her cell phone back into her shoulder bag, she then
bothered to look around.
 
Jamie, she
realized, might already be there.
 
Although, she also knew, that he was notorious for being always
late.
 
But she looked around anyway.

When
she saw Tommy sitting at a booth near the far right side of the restaurant,
eating his lunch, her heart soared.
 
She
smiled and hurried to his side.

“I
didn’t know you were coming to LaBoray,” she said as she approached him.

Tommy,
who had just put a fork-full of food in his mouth, looked up and saw her.
 
It was only then did Grace see that he wasn’t
eating alone.
 
A beautiful blonde was
seated at his booth opposite him, eating too.

“Hey,”
he said as he began standing up.
 
He
placed his hand on her upper back and kissed her on her forehead.
 
“Here for lunch?”

“Yup,”
Grace said and glanced over at the woman in his booth.
 
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“How
about that?” he said.
 
Then he turned
toward his guest.
 
“I want you to meet
Margaret. Marge, meet Grace.”

Grace
was surprised that he didn’t say who she was, such as meet Grace, my girlfriend
or my lady, but she let it slide.

“Hi,”
she said.

“Hi,”
Margaret said.
 
“I would shake your hand,
but I’m eating.”

“Good
point,” Grace said with a smile.
 
Then
she looked at Tommy for more of an explanation.
 
But he didn’t give her one.

“Care
to join us?” he asked her instead.

“No,
I’m waiting on Jamie.”

“Ah,”
Tommy said.
 
“Mr. Never On Time.”

“That’s
the one.
 
I’d better get back out front
so he can see me.”

“Okay.
 
I’ll call you later,” Tommy said, kissed her
again, and then she looked at Margaret.
 
“And nice meeting you, Margaret.”

“You
too,” Margaret said with a smile.

Grace
glanced back at Tommy, who glanced down at her clothes, and then she began
heading back to the lobby.
 

She
continued to take peeps at Tommy as she continued to wait for late-behind
Jamie.
 
During the entire time that she
watched, there was nothing about Tommy’s behavior that she would call
inappropriate.
 
Margaret seemed like a
good friend of his and he was treating her accordingly.

But
it felt strange to Grace.
 
Because Tommy
seemed so happy.
 
Because he seemed as if
he was with the kind of woman that brought out the best in him.
 
And she was blonde and bubbly, and nothing
like Grace.
 

By
the time Jamie arrived, she was ready to leave.

“I
thought we were going to eat here,” he said as he followed Grace outside.

“I
feel like fast food anyway.”
 
Then Grace frowned.
 
“Let’s just go,” she said, and they did.

And
Grace never brought it up with Tommy.
 
It
wasn’t anything to bring up, she felt.
 
Yes, he should have referred to her as his girl, but that was spilled
milk now.
 
So their relationship
continued to move right along.
 
Tommy
continued to go out of town more often than not, and many times out of the
country as he continued to build his empire beyond the borders.
 
He reassured Grace that it wouldn’t be this
hectic always, although he also admitted that his life had always been this
hectic in the past.
 
Grace missed him
terribly, and although he phoned and checked up on her every day, especially to
remind her to remember to eat or dress appropriately for the weather, she still
couldn’t shake that lonely feeling whenever he was away.

And
it got worse over time.

It
was a reaction she was afraid would happen.
 
Before Tommy, Grace was almost always alone and appreciated her
space.
 
But now that Tommy was in her
life she wanted to see him, to be with him, all the time.
 
She knew that had to stop.
 
She knew there was no way she was going to be
able to live a productive life on her own terms if she built her entire
existence around some man.
 

Then
something else happened.
 
It, too, was
minor in and of itself, but it posed a real complication.
 
Tommy had been out of town, in London, for
nearly a week.
 
As he always did, he
phoned to tell Grace that he would be back in town that night.
 
Grace, as she always did, was elated that he
was coming home and prepared to cook for him and to spend the night with
him.
 

But
he didn’t show up.

He
returned to Seattle, all right, but he didn’t bother to come and see her.
 
He phoned her, some hours after his return,
to tell her that he was back in town and would see her the next day.
 
It was so out of character for their
relationship, where he had always made Grace’s apartment his first stop
whenever he hit town, that it stunned her.
 
And he was so cavalier about it, too.
 
He knew she was anxious to see him again. She’d made that clear every
single time they talked on the phone.
 
But he, apparently, wasn’t all that anxious to see her.

But
more than just stunning her, it scared her, too.
 
Jillian said that he was a player and would
get tired of her limited sexual expertise soon enough.
 
Had that time arrived already?
 
Did he meet some beautiful woman in England,
who was a freak in the bedroom the way Jilly declared he liked, and he decided
to give that woman a try?
 
Or was
Margaret one of his friends with benefits that he was beginning to miss?
 

Grace
knew she was probably overreacting.
 
It
was, after all, just one time when he returned to town and didn’t rush to be by
her side.
 
But his decision to stay away
that night came at a time when she was already questioning if he was becoming
bored with her.
 
His decision to forgo a
night with her, then, came, for Grace, at the worst possible time.

That
was why, when he phoned her the next day to set up a dinner date, she turned
him down flat for the first time in their relationship.
 
She knew it would seem to him like tit for
tat, that he didn’t come see her last night so she wasn’t going to see him
tonight, but it went far deeper than that for Grace.
 
She was reasserting her independence.
 
He was in no rush to see her, so she had to
slow down, too.
 
She had to make sure
that, should this relationship falter, that she would be able to pick up the
pieces, and keep going.
 

She
also had to make clear to him that he wasn’t the only one dictating the terms
of their relationship, and that she wasn’t going to allow him to get so used to
her being there that he started taking her availability for granted.

When
she declined his dinner date, however, he took it far better than she had
thought he would.