TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART Read online

  But even though it had spooked her, she wasn’t so thrown that she couldn’t fall asleep in his arms. Because she fell asleep easily. She slept like a baby.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tommy’s S-class Mercedes, the most conservative car he owned, stopped in the graveled parking lot of the Bridgestone Baptist Church just as his cell phone began to ring.

  “You’re going to have to turn that off before we go in,” Grace said as Tommy checked the Caller ID.

  “I know,” he said. But when he saw it was Otto Brisbane, one of his oldest friends and most lucrative clients, he knew he had to answer. “But I have to take this call,” he added and took the call.

  Grace rolled her eyes and got out of the car. A couple of the ladies from her church saw her, waved, and she hurried over to them.

  “Hey, girl,” they said, looking more toward the car, at Tommy, than at Grace.

  “Well hello there,” Grace said, hugging them both.

  “You’re looking good,” one of the girls commented, and then looked into the car. “And doing good too apparently,” she added.

  Tommy watched as Grace mingled with the church ladies, and especially as the ladies kept taking peeps at him, as he talked to Otto.

  “At church,” he said when Otto asked his location.

  “Church? I didn’t know you were a religious man, Tommy.”

  “I’m a praying man,” Tommy said. “But I’m here with my lady.”

  “Ah,” Otto said. “The fiancé.”

  Tommy was not surprised that word had gotten around that fast. From Seattle to Beverly Hills and now to New York. “That’s right,” he said. “So what’s up? Don’t tell me there’s a problem.”

  “No problem, no,” Otto admitted. “But I have some suggestions I want to run by you. It could affect the overall blueprint so I really need you here to discuss it.”

  “Okay,” Tommy said, wondering inwardly what would be so important that it would require his presence. “You’re at home?”

  “Yes, I’m stuck here. Diana’s back in the country and is already getting prepared for New York fashion week, and you know how crazy that can get. Her staff depends on me to keep her sane.”

  “And from killing them,” Tommy added with a smile. He knew Diana Brisbane, the fashion designer, before he knew Otto.

  Otto laughed. “That too,” he said. “So can you come? It won’t take long, but I definitely need your input.”

  Tommy wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of leaving Grace right now. But Otto Brisbane wasn’t just a close friend. He was one of his biggest clients. And business was business. “Tell me when and I’ll move some things around and be there.”

  “Good man. But, unfortunately, I need this right away. How does tomorrow morning grab you?”

  “I can’t tomorrow,” Tommy said definitively. Tomorrow was the morning when he and Grace announced the drastic changes at Trammel.

  “Tomorrow’s out?” Otto asked. “Can’t move some things around?”

  “Not tomorrow, no. Unless it’s late evening, or Tuesday morning.”

  “Late evening?” There was a pause. Then Otto seemed satisfied. “You know that can work, Tommy, thanks.”

  They set up the time, and then Tommy hung up the phone.

  By the time he got out of his car, and was putting on his suit coat, Grace was walking back toward him. “What was that about?” she asked him.

  “Business. I’m needed in New York tomorrow.”

  Panic almost set in. “Tomorrow?” Grace asked. “But Tommy, Monday is the day we notify the board at Trammel. You won’t be there?”

  “I’ll be there. Don’t worry. I’ll leave for New York later that evening.”

  Grace exhaled. This was the part of life with Tommy that she knew she was going to hate. But it was his life, it came with him, and she wasn’t about to give him up. “Are you ready?”

  Tommy looked at the small, quaint church. “Not really,” he said. “But here goes.” He placed Grace’s arm on his arm and they walked, slowly, inside of the small church.

  After church, as most of the parishioners congregated outside, Grace pulled Tommy away from a group of admiring women and steered him over to the pastor. Pastor Nunn smiled as soon as the couple approached him.

  “I was wondering when I would get the honor,” he said as they approached.

  “Sorry about that, Pastor,” Grace said. “But you know how the sisters get when a new man pays a visit.”

  Pastor Nunn laughed. “Don’t I know it, Miss Grace. You’d think they never saw one before, when they see me every week. But I guess it’s not the same.”

  Grace grinned. “No, sir, it’s not,” she admitted. “But this is Tommy Gabrini.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tommy,” the pastor said as he and Tommy shook hands.

  “Nice to meet you,” Tommy replied.

  “He’s my fiancé, Pastor,” Grace said and flashed her engagement ring.

  “Oh, my. You’re engaged? Well congratulations to both of you. I am so happy for you, Grace. So you did have a man in your life after all.”

  Grace felt slightly embarrassed, especially since she wasn’t exactly living a chaste existence with that man.

  The pastor saw the dilemma in her expressive eyes and leaned closer to her. “At least you’re doing something to remedy the situation, sister,” he said.

  Grace smiled. “Yes, sir, we are.”

  “Hey, there,” one of the deacons said as he came over to the threesome. He extended his hand to Tommy. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello to you, brother. I’m Karl Folton, the head of the deacon board. Welcome to Bridgestone.”

  Tommy shook his hand and the two men began a conversation. Pastor Nunn pulled Grace aside.

  “Marriage, hun?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is he good to you, Grace?”

  “Oh, yes. Extremely good.”

  “That’s what matters, my child. But if he ever changes, and starts disrespecting you, don’t you stay there and take it. And you’d better not stay if he starts putting his hands on you. You aren’t that hard-up now, and don’t allow yourself to become that hard-up in the future.”

  Grace nodded. “Yes, sir. My father taught me that too.”

  “Yes, your daddy was a good man. He taught you how to appreciate your self-worth. So if Mr. Gabrini fails to appreciate it, you get out of there, you hear me? Because I’ll be honest with you,” the pastor said as he looked over at Tommy. “Loving a good looking man can be a painful journey. And that’s mainly because you’re not the only one who knows he’s good looking. All these excited ladies out here, even the ones in this here church, know it too.”

  Grace nodded. “I know.”

  “It’s going to be a challenge. Are you up for it, sister?”

  Grace smiled. “Yes, I think I am.”

  “No, Grace,” the pastor warned, without smiling at all. “Don’t think so. You’d better know so. When you’re dealing with a man like that, you’d better know.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Monday morning and the limo stopped in front of Trammel Transport Corporate Headquarters building. Grace and Tommy sat quietly on the backseat. He looked at her.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  She hesitated, as if she had to think about it, but then nodded her head. “I’m okay.”

  He studied her face. It was a pretty face, but a concerned one too. “It’ll work out, Grace.”

  “I know. And I feel I’m ready for this. The idea that I can take a company I love and make the kind of changes it needs to be successful again, is a challenge I know I’ll enjoy. But I can’t deny the obvious either,” she said as she looked at him. “I’m a little worried about how Jillian will react. Her dead husband started Trammel all those years ago. She’s going to declare that it’s still her company and who am I to try and take it.”

  “I understand that,” Tommy said. “Clive was a close friend of mine, and you’re right, Jillian will poi
nt that out time and time again. But that’s precisely why she’s going to be told at the same time everybody else on the board is told. That’ll give her less opportunity to show her ass.”

  “Oh, she’s going to show it regardless,” Grace pointed out. “She plays Miss Sweet and Nice around you, but around me and everybody else who’s not up there with her, she’s a for real bitch. She’ll believe until the day she dies that Trammel is hers.”

  “And that’s why you make it clear right away. To all of them. Trammel is owned by the shareholders. You own a majority of the shares now, fifty-eight percent of the shares to be precise. You now own Trammel. Jilly can believe anything she wants. You stick to the facts.”

  Grace looked especially hard at him. “You’re going to remain as chairman though, right?” Then she smiled. “As if you don’t have enough to do already with your own business obligations.”

  Tommy smiled weakly and kissed her on the lips. “I’ll stay for now,” he said. “But eventually you’re going to replace me, you understand? Once you get fully acclimated to your new role, you aren’t going to want me breathing down your neck telling you how to run your company.”

  “It’s your company too.”

  “No, Grace, it’s not. It’s yours, you hear me? Not mine, not Jilly’s. Yours. Get used to it.”

  Grace smiled again and leaned closer against him. “Yes, sir,” she said playfully.

  Tommy held her tighter, and kissed her hair. But it was going to be a daunting task. They both knew it. Yesterday she was nothing more than Jillian’s chief of staff. Today she was about to become CEO, which would make her Jillian’s boss. She was in for it, and they both knew it.

  “What is this meeting about, Jilly?” one of the board members asked when Jillian Birch walked into the top floor boardroom at Trammel Transport. “I was supposed to be in Boston today, but I get a call for this emergency meeting.”

  “Not my call,” Jillian said as she made her way to the head of the table on the back end. Tommy, as chairman of the board, always sat at the head of the table on the front end. Which Jillian didn’t like one bit. But because Trammel often needed that infusion of cash Tommy gave just so they could stay afloat, she never objected either. And although Tommy did own the single most chunk of shares of Trammel at forty percent, Jillian’s thirty-seven percent, coupled with her son Cameron’s five percent, made her, at least as Jillian saw it, the undeniable head of Trammel.

  “You didn’t call this meeting?” another member of the board asked.

  “Tommy called it,” Jillian said as she sat down. “And what is it about? Don’t ask me. I have no idea.”

  She pulled her compact out of her purse and began applying more lipstick and makeup to her surgically enhanced lips and cheekbones. She also began fluffing her thinning blonde hair as if she was preparing for a night out rather than a board meeting. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Tommy Gabrini. The level of disrespect that man showed to her sometimes, she thought angrily as she brushed her face with rapid strokes, her pasty hand now filled with liver spots and wrinkles. That was why she was so perturbed when one of Tommy’s assistants informed her late last night that he was holding a board meeting this morning that required her attendance. Required her attendance, the girl said. The least he could have done, it seemed to Jillian, was to notify her himself if it was that important.

  But he never did. Every meeting he ever held at Trammel was relayed to her by one of his assistants. He might have been the head honcho at the mammoth Gabrini Corporation, where a company like Trammel would be too small for him to even consider acquisitioning, but Jillian was head honcho at Trammel. Yet Tommy never, it seemed to her, respected that fact.

  After fielding more what’s it all about, Jilly questions, Jillian and the rest of the board finally looked up to see Tommy Gabrini walking through the door. All of them, except Jillian, stood to their feet when their chairman walked in. The pretty young black woman they all knew as Jillian’s chief of staff, walked in with him.

  Jillian found it particularly odd when Tommy escorted Grace to the seat at the head of the table. She knew they were dating now, to her great disappointment. She had hoped that Grace and her son Cameron would eventually marry and then Grace would add her ten percent shares to Jillian and Cam’s forty-two, consolidating Jilly’s power. But when Grace took up with Tommy, Jillian knew that was the end of that dream. But why would Tommy have her attending a board meeting? She wasn’t a member of the board!

  “Good morning,” Tommy said. “Have a seat, please.”

  Everybody sat back down. Grace sat down too. Tommy remained standing.

  “I’ll be brief,” he said, “since I have another meeting to attend with my own board of directors.” They all laughed because they fully understood the difference between Trammel’s quaint board of directors, and the board of an international conglomerate like the Gabrini Corporation.

  “As you all know,” Tommy continued, “I came onboard at Trammel several years ago when Clive passed away. The business was floundering at that time, about to close its doors, and I therefore brought the majority of the shares being offered for sale to keep the business viable. I was also appointed board chairman, although I would have preferred not.” They laughed again. “As all of you know,” Tommy continued. “And Jillian replaced Clive as CEO. However, I called this meeting because I wanted to notify each and every one of you in person of a major change in the hierarchy of this organization. Effective immediately, Grace McKinsey, whom I think you all know, is now the majority shareholder of Trammel Transport.”

  Every eye in the room immediately flew, not to Grace, but to Jillian.

  But Jillian was staring at Tommy. “What do you mean she’s the majority shareholder?” she asked. “I beg your pardon. I’m the majority shareholder. Cam and I own the majority of the shares in Trammel.”

  “As of right now, Grace owns fifty-eight percent of the shares,” Tommy said to amazed looks from the members.

  Jillian stood to her feet, her face a mask of umbrage and outrage. “Are you insane?” she asked Tommy. “That’s impossible! How can she own fifty-eight percent?”

  Tommy started to explain, but Grace touched his hand. If Jillian was ever going to respect her as boss, she had to start now.

  Grace looked Jillian dead in the eyes. “Thanks to my father, who once served as executive vice president of Trammel before his death, I inherited ten percent stake in this company.”

  “That’s old news,” Jillian said dismissively. “Why are you rehashing old, nothing news?”

  Grace, however, refused to get knocked off her game. “Tommy has given me his forty-eight percent shares,” she went on. “Couple his forty-eight with my ten, then you do the math. That makes me majority shareholder.”

  “Forty-eight percent?” Jillian asked with a disgusted look on her face. “What forty-eight percent? Tommy doesn’t have forty-eight percent to give! He only owns forty percent himself, what are you talking about?”

  Again Tommy was about to explain, but again Grace touched him on his arm. Tommy inwardly smiled and moved aside, over by the window sill. He, like everybody else in the room, watched Grace. She was nervous as hell. He could tell by the way her small hands gripped the arms of her arch-top chair. And although she was thirty years old, she always looked so young to him. Especially now, as her beautiful eyes appeared so large that they glistened like glass. It was as if she was amazed by the view; as if she was amazed to be at the head of the table when she wasn’t even allowed in the room just a day ago. She looked closer in age to a woman of twenty, rather than a seasoned, thirty year old.

  It was for that reason, because she always seemed so young and sweet and innocent to Tommy, that he had hesitated turning the reins of Trammel over to her. He had planned to do it before last week, but couldn’t pull the trigger. Not because he didn’t think she could ultimately handle it, but because he didn’t think he could handle anybody mistreating Grace in any way, or Grace havin
g to deal with that mistreatment. He didn’t want her to become like them. He didn’t want her jaded and sullied and bloodied with life’s smut. He didn’t want her to lose her sweetness.

  Grace was his heart. She was becoming precious to him in a way that no other human being had ever become. And he felt so protective of her. Overly protective. Almost possessive. She was his woman now. His responsibility. She was the one. And he wanted her safe from any harm.

  But he knew he also had to let go. He knew his best friend Reno, and Reno’s wife Trina, and even his brother Sal Luca were right. He had to stop babying Grace. If he respected her the way he wanted others to respect her, he had to stop babying her.

  So he stood back, folded his arms, and allowed her to handle her business. Just so long as they all knew he had her back. Just as long as they all knew that harming her would be the exact same thing as harming him.

  And if that happened, Tommy thought as he watched Grace, they’d better be prepared for the consequences.

  But as he watched her, he knew she was going to be just fine. Because she was far more determined than she was nervous. That showed clearer on her serious, brown face than anything else. Because this had to work. This was a dream come true for Grace, a chance for her to own her own company, and Tommy knew she was going to do everything in her power to prove those board members wrong. She was going to make this work.

  “You own thirty-seven percent of Trammel,” Grace was saying to a still-skeptical Jillian. “Cam owns five percent. Which gives you and him together forty-two percent, that’s true. And it’s also true that Tommy once owned forty percent. With my ten percent, we would have still owned fifty percent of this company. But Tommy somehow managed to purchase the remaining eight percent of Trammel shares from various other stakeholders who had been declaring all along that they weren’t interested in selling. But they sold. Don’t ask me how or why, but they did. And Tommy bought. And he gave all of those shares, along with his shares, to me. I now own fifty-eight percent of Trammel. In every scenario, I now own Trammel.”