Romancing Tommy Gabrini (34 page)

Reno
and Trina laughed.

“Is
that how you and Tommy met?” Trina asked.
 
“At a board meeting or something?”

“At a
dinner party,” Grace said, although she’d seen him around the office many times
before that party.

“And
it was love at first sight, right?” Trina asked.
 
When Grace didn’t immediately respond, she
smiled.
 
“Or lust at first sight,” she
added.
 
Grace smiled then, which prompted
Tommy to smile, too.

“And
if I know Tommy,” Reno started.

“Careful,
Reno,” Tommy warned.

But
Reno kept going. “If I know Tommy, which I do, I’m willing to bet he’s a maniac
in that bedroom, isn’t he?”

Grace
blushed.

“Reno!”
Trina said.
 
“You’re making her blush!”

“But
am I right?” Reno asked Grace.
 
“He wears
you out, doesn’t he?”

“No,
I do not,” Tommy quickly interjected, although he couldn’t stop smiling.
 
“That’s pure nonsense from the pit of hell!”

Reno
laughed.
 
“Oh, okay,” he said.
 
“I got your pit all right.”

Trina
looked at Grace.
 
“Don’t give my husband
a second thought.
 
He always gets giddy
whenever Tommy comes to town.”
 

Tommy
laughed.

“Giddy?”
Reno asked.
 
“No she didn’t call me
giddy.”

“It
fits, Dad,” Jimmy Mack said, laughing too.

And
although Grace was still a little overwhelmed by that force of nature called
Reno, she couldn’t help but smile, too.
 
This Reno took some getting used to, Tommy had already warned her that
he would.
 
But to know him, let Tommy
tell it, was to love him.

Grace
wasn’t there yet, but she was hopeful.

Later
that evening, in their own hotel room, Tommy and Grace talked about his
family.
 
Grace was impressed, in
different ways, with both Reno and Trina, but she wondered if she left any
impression at all.

“You
did,” Tommy said as they dressed for a night out with Reno and Trina.
 
He was standing at the mirror tying his tie,
while she was seated on the bed, putting on her heels.
 
She wore a sleek all-white dress, he wore a
light-brown suit.
 
“They think very
highly of you.
 
Trina says you’re the
best female I’ve ever introduced to them so far.”

“So
far?
 
Does that mean she figures there’ll
be others after me?”

 
“It does,” Tommy admitted.
 
“But I can show them better than I can tell
them.”

Grace
smiled.
 
She liked that answer.
 
“What about Reno?
 
Did he say anything?”

Tommy
hesitated. “Yes.”

Grace
looked at him.
 
Her heart began to
pound.
 
“What did he say?”

Tommy
smiled. “He said you seem nice.”

“And?”

“Why
does there have to be an
and
?”

But
this was important to Grace.
 
Somehow
getting Reno’s approval mattered to her.
 
“What else did he say, Tommy?” she asked with a plea in her voice.

Tommy
smiled. “He said you’ve got a very nice ass.”

“Tommy!”
Grace said and threw a pillow at him.

“What,
you want me to lie to you?
 
That’s what
he said.”

“I
mean, did he say anything constructive about me?
 
My ass not included.”

Tommy
again hesitated.
 
“He said you look like
a heart breaker, but that time would tell.”

Grace
didn’t like the sound of that.
 
“Why
would he say that?”

“That
was just his impression.”

“Is
he usually wrong about things like that?”

Tommy
began hesitantly placing his wallet and keys into the pockets of his
pants.
 
“Not usually, no,” he said.
 
And then looked at Grace through the dresser
mirror.

Grace
stared at him, and he stared at her, and then they both continued dressing in
silence.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I’m
ready, girl,” Trina said as she came from out of her bedroom.
 
She was dressed in a beautiful two-button
blazer and a pair of Cassidy-style pants that made Grace’s dress look like
something off a rack.
 
Which, Grace had to
remind herself, it was.
 

“You
look beautiful, Trina,” she said as Trina hurried to the side table and grabbed
her clutch.
 

“Oh,
thanks,” Trina said.
 
“Where’s the boys?”

“They
went downstairs,” Grace said, walking toward Trina.
 
“Reno wanted to show Tommy something. They
said they’d meet us in the lobby.”

“Sounds
good.
 
Ready?”

“I
am,” Grace said as she and Trina walked out of the penthouse.

For
the entire elevator ride downstairs they small-talked, although Grace couldn’t
help but feel slightly outgunned.
 
Trina
had on her beautiful diamond earrings and diamond necklace.
 
Her clutch was obviously designer, too, as
was her pantsuit and heels.
 
Grace knew
she looked nice, but Trina, she felt, looked elegant.

And
when they stepped off of the elevator and waited for Reno and Tommy, she felt
downright dowdy.
 
There was Tommy in his
Armani suit and Reno in his Versace, both men standing near the counter talking
with another equally well dressed man.
 
And of course Trina, who epitomized style.

Grace
used to pride herself in her simple tastes.
 
She never wanted to spend big bucks on anything, and made it a lifestyle
choice.
 
But she wasn’t alone
anymore.
 
She was with Tommy
Gabrini.
 
And Tommy didn’t fly below the
radar.
 
He flew high, wide, and in
style.
 
He had asked to take her clothes
shopping once, and she had turned him down cold.
 
She even found his suggestion offensive.
 
You
either take me as I am, or don’t take me at all
, she had warned him.
 
Now she understood why he had wanted to do
it.
 
He liked her style, he just didn’t
feel that it was up to par with his.

Now,
as she watched him and Reno and Trina, she couldn’t agree with him more.
 
With all of this elegance around her, she
suddenly realized she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Cameron
Birch wasn’t either.
 
He was seated at a
booth in the lounge adjacent to the lobby.
 
He could see the elevators from where he was sitting, and he could see
the whirl of activity in and out of the crowded bar.
 

And
then he saw Grace.

She
was standing near the elevators with another black beauty.
 
In fact, it was the woman who was standing
next to Grace that had attracted his attention first.
 
Mainly because of that form-fitting pantsuit
she wore.
 
Then he saw Grace, in her
sleek white dress, a dress that contrasted beautifully, he thought, against her
dark skin.
 
And although he was seated in
his booth with a female he had brought to Vegas with him, he didn’t hesitate.

“I’ll
be right back,” he said as he tossed his napkin and got up, and then hurried
toward Grace.

Trina
was showing Grace the gorgeous chandelier in the middle of the lobby, and they
both were looking up at it, when Cam walked up.
 
He had his palms up and seemed perplexed.

“What
are you doing here?” he asked as he came.

Grace
turned to the sound of his voice, and Trina looked, too.
 

Grace
wasn’t amused.
 
“Hello, Cam,” she said,
not interested in even pretending she was pleased to see him.

“What
are you doing here?” he asked her again.

“Same
reason you’re here I suppose.”
 
Grace
smiled.
 
“It’s Vegas!”

Cam hesitated.
“Oh, you’re trying to be funny?” he asked her.
 
“I haven’t seen you in Idontknow how long and you stand up here like you
don’t know me?
 
Like I’m some nobody to
you?”

“Oh,
Cam, please, you sound like a broken record.”

“You
should know.
 
Since you’re the one who
broke my record.”

Grace
smiled.
 
“You mean your record of
breaking up with females?
 
You mean the
fact that I was the first female to break up with you?”

Cam
smiled, but Trina wasn’t buying his act.
 
She could see the anger in his small eyes.
 
She looked across the lobby at Reno.

Reno
didn’t even know Trina and Grace were downstairs until he felt Trina’s
presence.
 
When he looked near the
elevators and saw her looking at him, he knew that look.
 
Something was wrong.
 
Then he saw the young man talking with Grace.

He
nudged Tommy, who had placed on his reading glasses and was checking out a tiny
replica of the PaLargio that Reno planned to offer in the gift shops.
 
Tommy felt Reno’s nudge and looked at him.
 

“Who’s
the surfer dude?” Reno asked him.

Tommy
looked where Reno was looking and as soon as he saw Cameron, he sat the replica
down.
 
And as soon as he sat the replica
down, Cameron hauled off and slapped Grace.

Although
people continued their goings and comings inside the lobby, there was a sense
of earth-shifting that Tommy and Reno both felt.

“Oh.
No. He. Didn’t,” Reno said as soon as Cam’s hand connected with Grace’s cheek.

And
without a moment’s hesitation, he and Tommy were off, running across the lobby
as if their lives depended on it.
 
And
for the first time in as long as Reno could remember, Tommy was outrunning
him.
 

“Are
you all right?” Tommy first asked Grace as soon as they made their way to her
side.

“I’m
fine,” Grace said, holding her cheek, still stunned by the slap, but ready to
slap back.

But
Tommy grabbed Cam by the arm.

“Tommy?”
Cam asked.
 
“What are you doing here?”

Reno
immediately ran to the private elevator and turned his key.
 

“Excuse
us, ladies,” Tommy said as he took Cam and all but dragged him to the private
elevator.
 

Grace
moved quickly to follow them, but Trina pulled her back.

“Why
are you stopping me?” she asked Trina.
 
“I can fight my own battles.”

“Not
with a Gabrini man you can’t,” Trina said, and Grace looked at her.
 
The Gabrini men, with an angry Cam, stepped
onto the private elevator and allowed the doors to close.

Trina
could see how anguished and flustered Grace was.
 
She knew that look.
 
When she first met Reno she was the same
way.
 
“Come with me,” she said to Grace
and escorted her into the same adjacent lounge Cam had come out of.
 
They sat at the bar.

As
soon as the bartender saw who had just sat on the stool, he hurried to take her
order.
 
“Mrs. Gabrini, welcome,” he said
with a smile.

“Hello,
Mark.
 
What would you like Grace?”

“Water
would be nice.”

“A
couple of Perrier’s please,” Trina said, and the bartender immediately opened
two bottles of water and poured them in glasses.

“Thanks,”
Trina said when he sat them in front of them and then left.

“What
are they doing to Cam?” Grace wanted to know.

“Do
you care?” Trina asked.

“I
just don’t like to be handled like this.
 
He slapped me, not them.
 
I should
be the one slapping back.”