Mob Boss 4: Romancing Trina Gabrini (11 page)

“That’s Sully,” Blossom said as if his arrival
was a letdown.
 
“He owns Pride Realty,
the company I work for.
 
He’s the boss.”

Reno was the kind of man who didn’t understand
why the boss wasn’t here to greet him in the first place, but he dismissed such
thoughts.
 
This wasn’t Vegas.
 
He wasn’t the big man on this campus
here.
 
And he’d better get used to that
fact.

Sully buttoned his suit coat as he approached
the group.
 
“Mr. Gabrini,” he said as he
approached, his hand already extended.
 
“Welcome to Crane.”

“I’ve been here before, but thanks.” Reno
shook his hand.

“I’m Sullivan Chambliss of Pride Realty.
 
But everybody calls me Sully.
 
Nice to meet you.”

“Same here.
 
And
everybody calls me Reno.”

Sully smiled.
 
“Reno, is it?
 
When you’re from
Vegas?”

Reno laughed.
 
“I was called Reno as a kid, before I moved to Vegas.”

“Ah. I see.”

“I would like you to meet my wife, Sully,”
Reno said.
 
“Katrina Gabrini.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sullivan.”

“Sully, please,” Sully said as he extended his
hand to Trina.
 
“And the pleasure’s all
mind.”

Trina smiled and shook his hand.
 

“We were just going inside, Sully,” Blossom
said.
“To check it out.”

“Pleased with the outside so far?” Sully asked
Reno.

“Not really, no,” Reno said honestly, looking
back up at the house.
 
“I was expecting
something more. . .”

“Elegant?” Sully helped him.

“Better than this,” Reno helped himself.
 
“It’ll be different if it was just me.
 
But I’ve got a wife here.
 
I’m not moving her into
no
dump.”

“A dump?”
Blossom asked with a shocked smile.
 
Even
Trina had to smile at that.
 
“Why, this
is a gorgeous Cape Cod, Mr. Gabrini.
 
It’s the absolute best we have on the market right now.
 
It has four bedrooms.
 
It has two baths, my goodness!
 
And the previous owner spared no
expense.
 
Why you should see the crown
molding---”

“You can always build,” Sully said to Reno,
ignoring Blossom.

Both Reno and Trina looked at him.
  
“Build?” Trina asked.

“It’s an option,” Sully said.
 
“We have good land around here.
 
Good locations.
 
Just not great looking
homes.
 
At least not of the few
that’s on the market right now.”

“Well, now, that’s a possibility,” Reno said,
thinking about it.

“You can rent this place for now,” Sully
started, but Blossom interrupted him.
 

“Rent it?” she asked.
 
“It’s not for rent, Sully.
 
The Hamiltons want to sell this thing.”

“They can be persuaded to rent for a year,” he
said to his employee.
 
And
then turned back to Reno.
 
“Provided you pay the rent in full for that year.”

“No problem,” Reno said.
 
“And you think they’ll go for it?”

“I’m certain they will.”

Reno smiled.
 
He liked Sully already.
 
He looked
at Trina.
 
Sully did also.
 
“So what you think, Tree?
 
Think renting is a good idea?”

Trina had to think about that.
 
Sully stared at her as she did.
 
She was a nice looking woman, all right, from
her big hazel eyes to her smooth brown skin to that curvaceous body of
hers.
 
But there was something more about
her, too, something clean and vibrant.
 
Something that, just seeing her, made Sully smile.
 
Gabrini managed to wrangle himself a prize
here.
 
Sully saw it right off.
 

“I would have preferred something a little
more stable than renting for a year,” Trina admitted.
 
“But if you aren’t sold on the place.”

“For you?”
Reno asked.
 
“Not a chance.”

“Then, yeah, renting is okay with me.”
 
Then she looked at Sully.
 
Sully’s breath caught when she looked those
big hazel eyes his way.
 
“Can you get the
owners to include an option to buy with the rental?
 
In case we fall in love with the place?”

To fall in
love
, Sully thought.
 
Now that was what he longed for all of his
life, but so far with zero success.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“I’m sure I could
get that for you, Mrs. Gabrini.”

“Call me Trina, please.
 
Then okay,” she said to Reno.
 
“I’m in.”

Reno extended his hand.
 
“You have a deal, Sully.”

“Good,” Sully said, shaking Reno’s hand.

“Well,” Blossom said, a little confused.
 
She’d never heard of a home for sale suddenly
becoming rental property.
 
At least not when they were so close to sealing the deal.
 
“I guess you still would like to see inside?”
she asked the Gabrinis.

“Sure,” Reno said as he and Trina followed
Blossom inside.
 
Sully followed the
threesome, his eyes on Trina’s ass as he brought up the rear.
 

And as they moved to enter the property, Trina
glanced back at him, feeling the heat of his stare.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Don’t even try it, Darla,” Nell said as she
sat behind her desk in her small office and listened to one of her waitresses
request to go home sick.
 
Armondo, the Hispanic
chef, was seated in front of her desk.
 
They had been drinking coffee together and talking about the menu before
this interruption.

“But I’m not feeling well,” Darla said.

Nell sat down her cup of coffee.
 
“Sheila’s off today.
 
Mandy’s at a doctor’s
appointment.
 
We don’t have
anybody else.
 
You have to stay, Darla.”

“But I’m not faking, Nell.
 
I feel awful.”

Nell ran her hand through her soft, short
hair.
 
Sometimes she hated her job.
 
“All right leave,” she said with great
frustration.
 
“I guess I can work the
tables today.”

Darla suddenly smiled like a new woman, her
blue eyes popping with glee.
 
“Thanks,
Nellie,” she said and burst out of the office, almost running into Barkley, the
bartender.

“You let those waitresses get away with
murder,” Mondo said.

“What’s her problem?” Barkley asked.
 
“Why’s she so happy?”

“Nell let her leave early,” Mondo said.

Barkley shook his head.
 
“You need to quit,” he said to Nell.
 
“They wouldn’t try that shit with
Hilda.”
 
Hilda wasn’t the name of the
manager of Clauson’s.
 
Her name was
actually Gweneth.
 
But her
take-no-prisoners management style had rendered her as spiteful as Broom Hilda,
the cigar-smoking, beer guzzling witch from the comic strips, and thus the
nickname.
 

“She’s sick,” Nell said.

“So am I,” Barkley said, his dark skin
sparkling against his white teeth.
 
“So
can I leave early, too?”

“What do you want,
Bark
?”

“I
want details, that’s
what,” he said, pulling up a chair in front of the desk.

Nell frowned.
 
“Details about what?”

“The new owner.
 
Who is
he?”

Mondo looked at the bartender.
 
“What new owner?
 
What are you talking about, Bark?”

“Y’all jiving,” he said, amazed.

“What?” Nell asked.

“You mean to tell me Broom Hilda didn’t tell
y’all?”

Mondo was getting impatient.
 
It was always like Barkley to drip it
out.
 
“Tell us what you mean,
got
dammit!”

Barkley looked Mondo up and down.
 
“Oh, no, you didn’t talk to me like that.”

“Barkley!” Nell yelled.
 
“Just tell us.
 
What is it?
 
What new owner?”

Barkley gave Mondo another up and down look,
and then looked at Nell.
 
“Mr. Clauson
sold this place.”

Nell
nor Mondo could believe it.
 
Nell
immediately stood, and Mondo stood with her, and they left her office and
hurried to Gweneth’s.
 
Barkley was known
to get his facts all twisted up.
 
They
had to hear this from the horse’s mouth.

“I just found out myself,” Gweneth said as
soon as Nell, her assistant manager, and Mondo, her chef,
came
racing into her office.

“But
is
 
it
true?” Nell asked.
 
“Mr. Clauson has sold out?”

Gweneth Plant, a tall red head with small,
brown eyes, was standing behind her desk.
 
She nodded her head.
 
“Yes,” she
said to them.

“But when?”
Mondo asked.
 
“To who?”

“When, I don’t know. He called me this morning
and said they finalized the deal and he’s sold his ten percent share of
Clauson’s Restaurant.”

“Ten percent?”
Nell asked.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
Mr.
Clauson didn’t own a hundred percent?”

“Not even close,” Gweneth said.
 
“He said the man who owned the other ninety
percent was a silent partner who allowed him to run the place however he saw
fit.
 
But when he died his son took
over.
 
And now his son wants to run the
whole shebang.
 
He bought Doug out.
 
He didn’t have a choice the way he
talked.
 
But given how poorly we’ve been
doing over the last couple years, he probably gladly sold out.”

“But why was it called Clauson’s if Clauson
only owned ten percent of it?” Mondo wanted to know.

“Because he once owned it all before he got a
partner.
 
This silent partner brought out
the entire restaurant and left him with the ten percent, and agreed to keep the
name since it was a successful business at the time.
 
Clauson used to own it outright.
 
But that was a long time ago.”

“So who’s the boss now?
 
Who is he?”

“His name is,” Gweneth started, and then had
to look down at the paper on her desk.
 
“Dominic,” she said, “Ga-bri-ni. If that’s how you
pronounce
 
it
.”

Nell was stunned.
 
She just stood there, unable to believe her
ears.

“Ga-bri-ni?”
Mondo asked.
 
“What kind of name is that?”

“Italian apparently.
 
And
he’s supposed to be a big shot, too. Mr. Clauson says he owns or used to own
some big time hotel in Vegas.”

Nell felt suddenly numb as her hand
involuntarily knocked over the cup of coffee on Gweneth’s desk, splattering the
liquid.

“Oh, no!”
Gweneth yelled. “Look what you’ve done!”
 
She immediately began to retrieve all of the paperwork from her desk,
with Mondo helping.

“I’m sorry, Gweneth,” Nell said, attempting to
help, too.