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

  “Take that down too,” she was saying. “And tell Maurice to memo it to Logistics.”

  When she looked over and saw that Tommy was standing there, she smiled. “You’re awake.”

  But Tommy didn’t return her smile. It was too damn late. “What are you doing?” he asked groggily as he folded his arms in protection against the mild night breeze.

  Grace looked at his dangling penis, and then up into his eyes. “Trying to do some prep work for a meeting I have later today. What are you doing? Put on some clothes.”

  “It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, Grace. Hang up the phone and come to bed.”

  “In a little bit, I will. I’m almost done.”

  But Tommy was not deterred. “You’re done now. Every night since I’ve been away it’s the same thing. Up until two and three in the morning, then up again at seven. You’re going to drop from exhaustion if you don’t get more rest.”

  “I understand that. But I have to finish this.”

  “Finish it later, Grace. Now come on to bed.”

  She held up a finger to Tommy, which infuriated him. “Read that back to me, Renay,” she said into the phone.

  Tommy immediately walked over to her, grabbed the phone from her hand, and slammed it onto the receiver. “Let’s go,” he said firmly.

  Grace looked at him angrily. “Why did you do that?”

  “It’s three a.m., Grace, why do you think? Get to bed and get some sleep.”

  It was his overprotectiveness again. It was becoming a consistent theme in their marriage. “I’m not a child, Tommy. I can manage on four hours’ sleep.”

  Tommy lifted her chin up to his face. “These bags under your eyes can manage too. And you’re losing weight.”

  Grace smiled and tried to play it off. “With all of those supermodels you’ve dated, I thought you liked thin women.”

  “You thought wrong. I like you. Just the way you are. And I don’t want you unhealthy. So let’s go.”

  “Okay, I’ll go.” She picked the phone back up again. “But first I’m going to call Renay back and remind her to---”

  But Tommy wouldn’t let her finish. If she wasn’t going to look out for herself, he was more than willing to do it for her. He took the phone from her, hung it back up, and grabbed her by the arm, lifting her from her chair.

  “Okay,” she insisted, pulling her arm away from him. “I’m going.” She began heading for the entrance. “But I don’t like it.”

  “It’s not about what you like,” he said, following her. “It’s about what you need. You need your rest. You’ve been pulling these crazy hours all this week. It’s becoming a bad habit.”

  She stopped in her tracks, causing him to bump into her. She turned around. “How would you know what I’ve been doing all week? You weren’t here and I haven’t told you.” But she figured out the answer almost as quickly as she had asked the question. “Henry told you no doubt. Your old faithful servant.”

  “He’s not my servant, and keep it moving.” He said this, not only to get her to bed, but to get his naked body out of the chill of the night air. He placed his hand on the small of her back and ushered her into the bedroom, closing the doors behind them.

  “It’s not fair, Tommy,” she said, looking at him.

  Tommy remembered how Alex Dawse had said the same thing to him in that hotel lobby in Paris. He understood Alex’s complaint, because he was never trying to be fair to her. But Grace? She didn’t have a leg to stand on. “I want my wife to be well rested and of good health, and you call that being unfair?” He walked over to her side of the bed and pulled the covers back. “Then I’m going to remain unfair, so get used to it.”

  She began untying her robe. “You would have a fit if I did the same thing to you, and you know I’m right. I was handling my business.”

  “At three in the morning? I don’t think so.”

  “So you wouldn’t be pissed if you were in the middle of a phone conversation and I hung up the phone?”

  “Yes, I would be pissed,” Tommy admitted, taking the robe from her. She was now standing there as naked as he was.

  “Even if it was three a.m., you’d still be pissed?”

  “Even then, yes.”

  Grace looked at him, amazed that he would admit it. “Then why do you think it’s all right for you to do that very thing to me?”

  “Because I’m your husband.”

  That was always his answer of late whenever they had any kind of dispute. “I assumed we would be equal partners in this marriage, Tommy.”

  “We are.”

  Grace couldn’t believe he said that. “You must be joking! What’s equal about us?”

  “You now own everything I own. Just by becoming my wife. That’s real equality, not that wafer-thin, fifty-fifty bullshit you’re talking about. You own it all now, Grace.”

  Grace couldn’t help but smile herself. She was still getting over the fact that she was married to this man. “I’d rather own my right to take care of my business anytime I choose.”

  “You’ll thank me for it when you aren’t sluggish and prone to make bad decisions later today.”

  She got in bed and he pulled the covers over her naked body. “I wouldn’t have been sluggish anyway,” she said as he tucked her in.

  Then she smiled as he began walking to his side of the bed. “I’ll bet it wasn’t even about me,” she said. “You wanted me off of that phone because I was disturbing your sleep.”

  Tommy smiled himself, although he knew that was not it at all. “Bingo,” he said, and Grace, laughing, took her pillow and threw it at him. He ducked, surprising her.

  “Damn, you’re quick,” she said.

  And it was Tommy who got the last laugh.

  THREE

  It was nothing like they thought it was going to be. Grace stood at the head of the table and her Logistics staff, all eleven of them, sat at the table, with an overflow around the walls of the small conference room. They stood defiant, it seemed to Grace, as if they knew she had nothing on them and was wasting their time. Although every one of them participated in the scheme. Although every one of them were paid for overtime they didn’t work. But they thought they were ingenious. They cooked the books to enhance their productivity, with their own internal audits reflecting their lies, and they were certain that Grace would never be the wiser.

  But Grace conducted her own internal review, and called this meeting after seeing the results. Results that were vastly different than the audits on file.

  At the beginning of the meeting, Mia Landrieu, the supervisor, stood to her feet. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, Grace,” she started, then caught herself. “I mean Mrs. Gabrini.” Some of her staff actually snickered. This was the kind of foolishness Grace was dealing with ever since she became the head of Trammel.

  Landrieu went on. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we don’t have time for any meeting. My people need to be in the field making sure the trucks are moving on time, and sitting up in here won’t move a damn thing.”

  “Amen to that,” a few of her people echoed.

  “You all of a sudden decide to call this meeting, pulling us away from our work, but when there are clogs in the transport flow, who gets the blame? Not you and your staff, but me and mine.”

  Even more amens from her staff.

  “We get the blame for it all. So what I suggest is that you meet with me, but allow my staff to go on about their business. The bottom line, that way, is that my staff will,” the supervisor continued, but Grace cut her off.

  “The bottom line is that you need to sit down,” Grace said.

  The supervisor, not to mention the staff, looked at Grace as if she had lost her mind. “Excuse me?”

  “Sit down,” Grace said bluntly. She hated to play the bitch, but ever since she took over Trammel she had been forced into that role. It bothered her greatly, but she’d play it all day long if she had to.

  The supervisor hesitated, as she
clearly did not like to take orders from anyone, especially some upstart like Grace, but she eventually sat down.

  Then Grace took the floor. “I was going to come in here and inform you that the entire Logistics department will be under my direct leadership. I was going to announce that Mrs. Landrieu will become a worker just as you are, and will answer to me just as each and every one of you will.”

  They were stunned by such an announcement, and she had their rapt attention.

  “I was going to let you know,” Grace continued, “that the jig is up. You all have lied. You all have cooked the books. You all have defrauded Trammel of vast sums of overtime pay and I was going to make certain that each one of you reimbursed Trammel for every dime. That was what I was going to do.”

  Then she exhaled. She knew what she was about to say would be controversial. She knew what she was about to say would not go over well with any of her other department heads or workers. They already didn’t like her and viewed her as some piece of ass who slept with Tommy Gabrini and was handed a company. All of her work and effort meant nothing to them. As far as they were concerned, she didn’t earn a thing. So she already knew they didn’t like her. And they didn’t have to like her. But they had to respect her.

  “That was what I had originally planned to come into this meeting and say to you.” Then she frowned. “But I can’t do it. Because what you did when you cooked those books, when you lied about overtime, when you did everything in your power to steal and steal and steal from my company, was orchestrated in such a way that you were certain I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Because every one of you were involved. Because if I fired one, I had to fire all of you, and how could I possibly fire an entire department, right?”

  They all looked at her, as if she was exactly right. Who, in their right mind, would fire an entire department?

  Grace continued. “I am firing the entire department. I have notified my staff to begin the search immediately. I have notified Human Resources, as I am now notifying you, that each and every one of you are fired. Effective immediately. Pack your bags and get out of my building, and get out now.”

  Half of them jumped from their seats, ready to hurt somebody, turning on their partners in crime, while the other half turned on Grace, calling her every manner of bitch and whore and every degrading word they could think of.

  “And if you think you can sabotage Trammel on your way out the door, think again,” Grace made clear. “I still have the option of pressing criminal charges against each and every one of you, because I have the proof. And I will exercise that option if you attempt anything at all other than leaving the premises. And leaving now. Good morning,” Grace added, and left them to their stupidity, and their outrage.

  Later that same day, after Grace had instructed three other department heads that they and their staffs would now take on additional workloads until the new staff were in place, she finally managed to sit down behind her desk. Not to relax, but to review final status agreements that had cleared Legal, and now had to clear her. So she was still knee-deep in work when she heard her office door open.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” her assistant said as she walked in. But Grace did not bother to look up. Mainly because Renay, her executive assistant, knew how busy she was. But Renay said it again.

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” she said, “but the new CFO would like to say hello.”

  Grace knew she was already distracted and probably didn’t hear that right, but she looked up anyway. Renay Ponder, her thirty-year-old African-American assistant, was walking toward her desk with a tall white man by her side. He smiled and spoke as soon as she looked up.

  Grace was taken aback. And it wasn’t because of his looks, although he was an obviously attractive man. It was because of the fact that he was there at all. It was one thing for Renay to barge in without permission, but it was another thing for her to bring a stranger in with her. Maybe Tommy was right. Maybe her staff was indeed too lax. “Hello,” Grace replied to his greeting, unable to conceal her displeasure.

  Brad Michelin, the newly installed Chief Financial Officer at Trammel, was taken aback himself. Especially when Grace looked up. She was Tommy Gabrini’s wife? This was the wife of the man who had been the most sought-after bachelor in Seattle? This was the wife of the man who had cornered the market on playing the field? He couldn’t believe it. She wore reading glasses, her hair was hardly freshly done, and her big brown eyes looked more puzzled than enchanting. She was so different than the women he’d known Tommy to favor that it threw him for a loop. Those super-gorgeous, super-tall, supermodels were Tommy’s pleasure. But this woman, though of African descent like the others, was small, wasn’t exactly super-gorgeous, and was far younger than he expected. And she bore a kind of understated innocence that belied her power as the head of her own company. She was, as he saw it, the polar opposite of a Tommy Gabrini girl. “Looks as if we’re interrupting you,” he said. “And please don’t blame your assistant for that. It’s on me. I wanted to introduce myself, and get a feel of the place. I’m Brad Michelin.” Brad extended his hand.

  Grace stood up and shook it. “Grace Gabrini,” she said.

  And he saw it. As soon as she stood and leaned toward him, shaking his hand, he saw what Tommy might have seen in her. He saw that vulnerability. That sweetness. That something about her specialness that went far deeper than the mere look of her, and made him want to protect her too. “It’s so good to finally meet you, Grace.”

  “I’m afraid I mistook what my assistant said. I thought I heard her say you were my new CFO.”

  Brad smiled. It wasn’t puzzlement, he decided, but sincerity in her big, bright, beautiful eyes. “You heard her correctly.”

  “But that’s not possible. I haven’t hired a CFO.”

  “He says Mr. Gabrini hired him,” Renay volunteered, thrown by the news herself.

  But not nearly as thrown as Grace. She looked at Brad, who, in her estimation, came off like some smiling used car salesman. “Tommy hired you?”

  “That he did,” Brad said proudly. “I’ve had a working relationship with your husband for many years now. He thought I would be a perfect fit. He hired me before he left for Paris.”

  But Grace was still reeling to respond. Tommy hired a CFO for her company? Without so much as mentioning it to her?

  “Truth is,” Brad went on, “I came a week earlier than my planned arrival. But by your reaction, I came too soon. So I do apologize for springing it on you like this. I honestly would have assumed your husband would have notified you by now.”

  Grace would have assumed the same thing, but she wasn’t going there with this man she’d just met.

  Brad saw her reluctance. “I’ll tell you what,” he suggested, “why don’t Renay here give me the grand tour, then show me to my office, and I’ll be out of your hair. How’s that? Will that work?”

  “No, it will not,” Grace said firmly. “I, too, must apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, but until I have an opportunity to review your selection, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises. Mr. Gabrini hired you, but I haven’t made the final approval on that hire.”

  Brad continued to smile, but Grace could tell he didn’t like what he was hearing. And she was right. He didn’t like it. Tommy Gabrini ran the mammoth Gabrini Corporation, which could swallow up this nothing company the way a shark could swallow a fish, and she had the nerve to buck his authority? To so much as question Tommy Gabrini’s authority? Who the hell did she think she was? “I was under the impression that Mr. Gabrini, as chairman of the board here at Trammel, had final approval. And since he hired me, and given who he is, I was under the impression that I was hired in a case closed, end of discussion kind of way.”

  She wasn’t going to argue with this man about her own company, that would be nonsensical. “Mr. Gabrini will get in touch with you after we’ve had a conversation,” she said. “Have a nice day.”

  Brad’s soft g
reen eyes gave her a hard look, but he kept that salesman smile. “Certainly,” he said, not like a man who agreed with her, but like a man who had no other choice but to agree. “I’ll look forward to hearing from him.” And then he slid right back out the way he came in, with Renay escorting him out.

  As soon as they left, Grace picked up her desk telephone, ready to give Tommy a piece of her mind. It was just like him to do something like this. Ever since he put a ring on it he’d been acting as if she was his possession, not his wife. Which was fine in the bedroom. She loved it in the bedroom. But that shit didn’t work in the boardroom. Every move she made had to be cleared by him. Every decision she made had to be approved by him. Every time she wanted to jump, he had to decide how high. This was getting out of hand.

  She hung the phone back up and decided a face-to-face was needed. If he was ever going to take her complaints seriously, he had to see that she was serious. She grabbed her suit coat off of the back of her chair, grabbed her purse and smartphone out of her bottom desk drawer, and then headed for the exit. She was so upset she could hardly contain her rage. But she contained it. She was still trying to win the full respect of her employees, who still thought her too young and over-her-head to run Trammel the right way. She wasn’t about to blow it by throwing some rage-filled tantrum in front of them now. That level of rage she was saving for later. That level of rage she was saving exclusively for Tommy.

  The object of her rage was in his office at the Gabrini Corporation. He was leaned against the front of his desk talking shop with three businessmen. His arms were folded over his pristine Armani suit, his legs were crossed at the ankle, and the general atmosphere was an unpleasant one. As usual, it was Tommy they were courting, not the other way around. They wanted to do business with him, and had come to offer their wares. But Tommy, also as usual, was the one not yet sold. He was a venture capitalist. He invested in failing businesses all day long. But he was very particular about the businesses he agreed to lifeline. These men wanted a lifeline. Their businesses were failing, but they wanted to maintain majority control. But just as they were nearing the hard sell, just as they were about to agree to give up controlling interest, his office door flew open, and Grace, with Irma, Tommy’s secretary, frantically hurrying up behind her, walked in.