Romancing Tommy Gabrini (5 page)

CHAPTER TWO

She
was near the back of the massive room, in a group populated by middle-aged men
and their middle-aged wives.
 
He was so
pleased that he had found something interesting to observe that he placed his hands
in the pockets of his pants and watched her.
 
Like him, she seemed content to listen while others carried the
conversation.
 
But unlike him, her
attention never strayed from the speakers.
 
He could still see only part of her, and even then some old fart kept
blocking most of that.
 
But the little he
could see he liked.
 

She
had a strong, straight nose, and full, fresh, African lips.
 
Unlike Jillian, she didn’t need any plastic
surgery to enhance those luscious lips.
 
Her thick hair swept up in the front, held there by what he decided was
a tasteful pin, and the rest slung down her back in thick, brown layers of
bounciness.
  
And her skin.
 
It seemed flawless from across the room.
 
It seemed so creamy and chocolaty that
watching it made him immediately think of licking.
 
But as his eyes roamed down her body, at the
curve of her sizeable breasts, at her flat stomach and tight ass, at those
long, shapely legs of hers, he realized it wasn’t her face he wanted to lick,
but a part of her far lower.
 
His penis
throbbed, in fact, when he looked at where her dress ended, and the gap of her
legs began.

Candace
wrapped her arm around Tommy’s arm just as she told the punch line of some
joke, as if she knew his attention was elsewhere and she wanted to rope him
back in.
 
The other men and women in
their group laughed at her joke with riotous laughter, when Tommy, who hadn’t
heard the full tale, could only manage a smile.
 
But despite his lack of attention, Candace was becoming the life of the
party.

But
even as Jillian’s butler announced that dinner was served, and Candace
continued to be the party’s life, Tommy’s eyes kept roaming back to Grace.
 
It seemed to him that she was working rather
than playing, as she listened a tad too intently to the old men who seemed to
latch onto her like a sponge.
 
And
whenever their wives would leave their side or would otherwise get distracted,
the men would whisper something in the young lady’s ears that would make her
laugh.
   
But she would never be so
impressed, if Tommy was reading it correctly, to accept their offers.
 
She continually shook her head no, even as
she laughed.

Although
Tommy was seated next to Candace at the dinner table, he was delighted to see
that the object of his attention was seated directly across from him.
 
And it was only then did Tommy get the full
measure of her.
 
With her flawless dark
skin and her popping bright brown eyes, she was a stunner to behold, he
thought.

But
it wasn’t just her looks, although they were considerable.
 
She had an air of intelligence about her, and
a level of maturity that belied her youth.
 
He watched her from across the table as she conversed with her male
admirers.
 
She was never flirty with
them, or seemed to be leading them on.
 
When one gave her a compliment, she immediately pivoted back to
business, as if she wanted to make it clear to them that her interest began and
ended there.
  

Although
he had found her physically attractive when he was checking her out from across
the room, Tommy nonetheless had assumed her to be a phony in the long run.
 
He had assumed her to be one of those pretty
young ladies trying to climb that ladder of success on the back of some older,
richer guy.
 
Which was another no-no for
him.
 
The kind of women he found
attractive were often already successful, and had pretty young men trying to
climb those ladders of success through them.
 
But listening to her now, and watching her up close, changed his
mind.
 

Up
close he didn’t see phoniness in her at all, or any of that
sleeping her way to the top
mentality.
 
He sensed a genuine niceness about her that
no amount of money could ever buy or no Hollywood actress could ever
emulate.
 
And seeing somebody like her in
this sea of fake laughs and hidden agendas, pleased him.
 
What he thought would be nothing more than
another physical attraction had turned on him.
 
And he was intrigued.

Grace
was intrigued, too, as she sat straight-back in her chair and listened to the
two men on either side of her compete for her attention.
 
She knew Tommy’s face.
 
She’d caught glimpses of him at Trammel down
through the years as he was either coming to or going from various meetings
with Jillian.
 
He was one of those power
hitters that they referred to as “Jillian territory” around the office.
 
Not because Jillian wanted them to herself,
but because they were the kind of super-rich, fat-cat CEOs who would be
offended if anybody less than Jillian’s rank even considered meeting with
them.
 
So Grace, and the rest of the
senior staff, knew to keep their distance.
 
Grace didn’t even know their names.
 
But she never forgot their faces.
 
That was why she knew that the gentleman seated across from her now, the
one who had been taking sly peeps at her all night, was one of those faces.

She
had discovered him earlier that night.
 
He was standing across the room, listening to a big-breasted Latina
businesswoman Grace knew from previous parties, the one who loved to talk as if
talking was going out of style.
 
The
first thing that had caught Grace’s eye about him was how well-dressed he
was.
 
Versace head to toe, if she knew
her designers.
 
His dinner jacket, in
fact, was tailored to such perfection that it revealed in stark detail just how
buff he really was.
 
It also caused Grace
to remember how, before she ended up in that long-term disaster of a
relationship with attractive but very slim-hipped Cameron Birch, the man seated
across from her now had the kind of powerful body type that had always turned
her on.
 

Here
was a man, she thought when she first saw him from across the room, who was big
without being body-builder big, but was also more athletic and lean than
slim.
 
And his hair was so full and rich
and well-groomed that she at first wondered if the man was gay.
 
She’d seen very few straight men who knew how
to be that well put together.
 
But by the
way he kept taking sly glances at the Latina’s Anna Nicole-sized breasts, and
the way he kept taking peeps at her, made her know better than that.
 
And made her a little more interested
herself.
 
But then she saw his face, and
remembered it, and therefore looked away.
 
He was in that “Jillian territory” category, so she returned her
attention back to her own circle.

But
now they were at the dinner table, seated across from each other, and avoidance
was out of the question.

“You
like Michael Buble’, too, don’t you, Grace?” asked one of the men seated across
the table from her, on the opposite side of Candace.
 
And Grace suddenly found herself, for the
first time, in a conversation that also included the handsome fat cat.

“I
do,” she said, as her eyes took a quick glance at Tommy.
 
He was already staring at her.

“Then
will you please tell Candace here that people who like Buble’ aren’t all
squares and old white guys?”

Grace
smiled.
 
Tommy was drawn to her bright,
white smile.
 
“Well, Candace,” she said,
“I like Buble’, too, and I don’t know if I fit the former category, but I
certainly don’t fit the latter one.”

The
man and Candace laughed.
 
Then Candace
looked to her left, where Tommy sat.

“Don’t
tell me you like him, too, Thomas?” she asked him.

Tommy
held up his hand.
 
Grace could see the
big diamond ring he had on his finger and the Rolex watch he had on his
wrist.
 
“I’m afraid I must plead guilty,”
he said with a rakish grin, and Grace could feel her heart flutter at the
sight.
 
“I’m not his number one fan or
anything close to it, but I enjoyed his
Call
Me Irresponsible
album pretty well.”

Grace
stared at him.
 
It was one of her
favorites, too.

“Well,
him I don’t get,” Candace said candidly.
 
“I think he’s for the birds personally.
 
I like my music to be at least current.
 
Heck, I’ll even take Justin Bieber over Michael Buble’ any day of the
week.”

“Me,
too, young lady, me too,” said the old man to her left, undoubtedly to appease
his good looking table mate.
 
Tommy and
Grace looked at each other and smiled, as if they both were reasonably certain
that the old guy had never even heard of Justin Bieber.

But
it was their first eye to eye contact.
 
Tommy decided to go with it.
 
“I’m
Tommy Gabrini, by the way,” he said with a smile.

“Grace
McKinsey. Pleased to meet you.”

“I
don’t think I’ve seen you around Seattle’s social set,” he said.
 
“Are you new in town?”

The
man seated next to Grace took immediate exception.
 
“Grace new in town?” he asked with
incredulity in his voice.
 
“Not a
chance.
 
I knew her when her old man was
still alive and was running Trammel.”

“Not
running it,” Jillian was quick to point out from the head of the table.
 
“Employed there, yes, and an excellent
employee, but he never ran Trammel.
 
Nobody has ever run Trammel but Clive and then me,” she made clear.

Grace
chose to ignore her and keep her eyes on Tommy.
 
Hers were big, bright, golden brown eyes, Tommy noticed.
 

“I’ve
lived in Seattle most of my life,” she said.
 
“But I was going to ask you the same thing.
 
I’ve attended many of Jilly’s parties, but I
don’t think I’ve ever seen you at any of them.”
 
She refused to mention the fact that she’d seen him numerous times
around the office, especially since he seemed to have absolutely no
recollection of ever seeing her.

“I’ve
attended many parties around town,” Tommy said, “but I do believe this is my
first time attending one hosted by Jilly.”

“Ah,”
Grace said.
 
“So there you have it.
 
You’re a virgin here, and since I attend very
few parties around town, I’d be a virgin there.”
 

Tommy
laughed heartily.
 
“Right,” he said.

Candace,
however, was stumped.
 
“I don’t get it,”
she said with a frown on her face.
 
“What
in the world does virginity have to do with it?”

“What
indeed,” said the older guy seated to the left of Candace.

Grace,
Tommy was pleased to see, didn’t demean Candace’s lack of understanding at
all.
 
She merely explained herself.
 
“I was just pointing out the fact that I
didn’t attend any of the parties Mr. Gabrini had attended, and he never
attended any of Jillian’s previous parties.
 
So I was using the ‘first time’ reference.
 
That’s why I called it virgin.”

Candace
still didn’t seem to get it, but Jillian came to her rescue.
 
She felt as if Tommy was getting a little too
familiar with Grace anyway.
 
She had her
own plans for Grace, and they didn’t include Thomas Gabrini!
 

“I
agree with you, Candy,” Jillian said to her guest.
 
“Sometimes Grace doesn’t explain herself very
well at all.
 
I’ve gotten on her about
that countless times.”
 
Then she looked
at Tommy.
 
“Grace is my chief of staff,”
Jillian said, to inject herself fully into the conversation.
 
“I don’t know if you were aware of that.”

“Who,
this child is your chief of staff?” Tommy said with a smile.
 
“Why she can’t be more than ten!”

Grace
laughed.
 
“Ten plus twenty more,” she
said, although she didn’t think Tommy heard her.

“And
don’t let her youth fool you,” the old man seated beside Grace said with a
laugh of his own.
 
“She’s as ruthless a
businesswoman as Jilly.
 
She’s following
right in Jilly’s footsteps.”