“And I did not allow them to watch any, sir,” Henry responded. “Destiny’s friends were texting her and told her all about it before I could retrieve her phone, and then she told TJ. That’s how they found out.”
Tommy should have known. Social fucking media traveled by the speed of light, replete with real news and fake news all mixed up together into a confusing pile. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I, however, sir,” Henry said, “did see it on the television. It was an awful scene.” Then Henry added: “You witnessed it, I understand, sir.” Tommy was always his priority. Always the one person he was most concerned about.
Tommy placed his hands on his hips and nodded his head. “Yes,” he said. “I saw it. Nearly died when I saw it, but I saw it.”
“And the baby’s fine, too, I take it?” Henry asked.
“Grace seems to think so. I want you to phone Doctor Frazier. Tell her I want her to come over and examine my wife. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Yes, sir. I will, sir. And I know Mrs. Gabrini is still shaken right now, but I’m also sure she’ll be okay. Mrs. Gabrini is a very resilient lady. She’ll find a way.”
Tommy smiled. Henry was always a calming presence in his life. “Thank you,” he said to him, and then made his way back to Grace and the kids.
And later that evening, after Doc Frazier had come and gone, voicing no concerns, and after Grace had fulfilled her desire for a long, hot bath, Tommy put her to bed. But then he crawled in bed beside her and held her in his arms. He had work to do, and plenty of it, and had to cancel a property tour that his CFO felt would be a prime piece of real estate for their goal of conquering more of Seattle and the surrounding towns. But he wasn’t leaving Grace.
And when Destiny and TJ peeped around the bedroom door, and asked once again if their mother was okay, Tommy smiled. He knew what they were really asking: could they be with their mother.
“Don’t wake her,” he warned them and they smiled and hurried in, walking quietly. Both children got in bed between their parents and laid down. Grace was their world, and Tommy knew they’d been traumatized too.
And there they laid. The entirety of Tommy’s nuclear family on that one bed, including the one still gestating inside Grace’s belly. And within mere minutes every one of them, except for Tommy, had fallen asleep. He stared at them as they slept. For a man who thought that love and family wasn’t going to be his good fortune, he felt very fortunate that day. Very blessed. A man ready to recommit himself to what was, but sometimes was not conveyed by his workaholic actions, his number one priority: his family.
He turned onto his side and, with one fluid motion, managed to wrap his long, strong, protective arms around all of them.
CHAPTER THREE
A week later, and trying her best to put that horrific day behind her, Grace drove Tommy’s Maserati four-door sedan up to the parent pick-up lane of Destiny’s private school and waited. Destiny, running her mouth with a group of girls, was told that her ride was there. She broke away from the crowd and, with bookbag in tow, got in and plopped down on the front passenger seat. Her baby brother TJ was in his booster car seat in the back.
“How did it go today?” Grace asked as she drove away.
“It went okay,” said Destiny. “How’s the baby?”
“It’s not a baby yet,” TJ said. “It has to pop out of Mommy’s belly to be a baby.”
Grace smiled as she pulled off. “The baby’s fine,” she answered Destiny. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. They want me to run for class president.”
Grace looked at her popular daughter. “And will you?”
“I doubt it,” Destiny said.
“Why wouldn’t you wanna be president?” TJ asked. “Mommy and Daddy says we can be anything we want to be.”
“Who says I wanna be that?” Destiny asked. “I don’t want it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t. It’s not my thing. Just because people want me to be something doesn’t mean I have to be what they want. Mommy and Daddy taught us that too.”
Grace smiled. “That’s right,” she said.
Then Destiny looked at her mother. “Are you okay?” she asked her.
Grace nodded her head. “I’m okay.”
“It’s still funny seeing you driving Daddy’s car.”
“Yeah, right?” Grace agreed. “I feel funny driving it. I’m so used to seeing him behind this wheel driving us.”
“It smells like Daddy,” TJ said.
Grace laughed. “Everything smells like Daddy when he’s not around,” she said, looking through the rearview at TJ.
“What’s for dinner tonight?” Destiny asked.
“Spaghetti.”
“Yeh!” Destiny was happy. It was her favorite. “And Daddy’s coming home for dinner like he said tonight, right?”
“He said he would, yes.”
Destiny smiled again, and nodded her head. “I love your spaghetti, Mommy,” she said. “It’s gonna be the best dinner ever!”
Grace laughed. Leave it to an adolescent girl to think everything she liked was the best thing ever.
But that night, at dinnertime, Grace was heartbroken. Destiny and TJ loved her spaghetti. They usually ate it like there was no tomorrow. But this time, this night, because Tommy had promised to make it home for dinner but didn’t, they were barely touching their food. Especially Des, Grace noticed. She was just moving food around on her plate, attempting to take a bite, and then sitting it back down.
Grace knew why this absence was affecting them more than any of his prior absences. They thought it was going to be different after her accident. They thought, because their mother could have died in that car crash, that surely their father would want nothing better than to be around his wife and kids twenty-four-seven. And Grace was certain he would like nothing better. But always, with Tommy, work tended to dominate.
“You need to eat, Des,” Grace said.
“May I be excused?”
“You need to eat your dinner first.”
“Why isn’t he here, Mommy?” Destiny asked. “You work, too, and you’re here every night. Why can’t he be here? Why do we have to beg him to be with us?”
“Nobody begs him,” Grace said, but she knew exactly what Destiny meant. It was the kind of thing every Gabrini family went through. Gabrini men were workaholics.
“May I be excused?” Destiny asked again.
“He loves you, baby,” Grace said. “He loves all of us.”
“Fine way of showing it,” Destiny said beneath her breath.
“What did you say?” Grace asked her.
“May I be excused?” Destiny asked for the third time.
Grace exhaled. She was tired of defending him too. Especially since it had barely been a week since he called himself recommitting to them. “Yes,” she said, and Destiny couldn’t leave that table fast enough.
Grace looked at TJ. He wanted to be excused, too, but she knew why he stayed. He didn’t want to leave his mother alone. That was TJ.
She smiled at him, and ruffled his curly hair. “Looking just like your father every day,” she said. And that, as Grace knew it would, made TJ smile.
####
Tommy was in his office, sitting with aides at his conference table, and the evening had already gotten away from them. Kory Zuckerman, his CFO, had just ended a call on his cell phone. He looked at the boss.
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
“I just got some disturbing information from one of my sources.”
“Disturbing how?”
“We lost the bid,” Kory said, and the aides all sighed with disappointment.
“But how could we?” said one.
“We went in lower than we ever went in before,” said another.
But Tommy was less interested in the why. He wanted to know the who. “Who won?” he asked Kory.
“Joe DeLuca of DeLuca Construction.”
“A
gain?” asked yet another aide. “Who is this guy?”
“I want a full report,” Tommy said. “About time I take him seriously. This is the third time in a row he’s outbid me.”
“There’s a problem, however,” said Kory.
Tommy looked at him. “What problem?”
“From my understanding, he’s not, how shall I put this? He’s not a hundred percent legit.”
Tommy stared at him. “Mafia?”
Kory nodded. “That’s what I’m hearing, yes, sir.”
Tommy exhaled. All he needed.
“Still want that report?” Kory asked.
“No. Not from you, anyway. I’ll let my brother handle it.”
Kory nodded. He was new to the company, but he’d heard speculation when he arrived that Tommy’s kid brother Sal Gabrini was a mob boss in his own right. One of the most powerful in the country. He’d even heard that Tommy wasn’t a hundred percent clear of mob stench himself, but Kory didn’t believe it. Tommy Gabrini was a straight shooter in all his dealings. Every penny that came into GCI, Kory knew for a fact, as chief financial officer, was legit.
Kory’s cell phone rang again. He looked at the Caller ID and then moved away from Tommy to answer it.
“I still don’t see how we lost that bid,” one of the aides was saying.
“You heard Mr. Zuckerman. The guy’s Mafia. He probably terrorized somebody into telling him what our bid was so that he could bid lower.”
“But that’s illegal,” an aide said.
“And?” said another one.
“Anyway, it’s late,” Tommy said to his staff. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Everybody go home.”
They all rose quickly and without hesitation: glad to go. They took off. All, that was, except for Tonya, the only female in the group. A very beautiful female. She stayed behind, standing as if she had molasses in her shoes, and she put on her jacket ever so slowly. Tommy saw her slow movements, and knew what she was up to, but he let it play out.
“Just so you know,” she said to him, lifting her long, blonde hair over the back of her jacket collar, “I give a mean massage.”
Tommy looked at her. She was pretty, but only just. But more importantly, she had a good, agile brain. She was an asset. “Do you?”
She smiled. “Some say the best ever. I know how to relax a man unlike he’s ever been relaxed before.”
This child, Tommy thought.
“Nothing like a sweet, relaxing touch at the end of the day,” she continued. “Want one?”
“No,” Tommy said bluntly, and without pretending to be anything but insulted. She knew he was a married man. “Have a nice day.”
She was embarrassed. He could see it in her eyes. She probably had not expected a turndown. Men didn’t turn her down! She got in a hurry after that, and left his office quickly.
Within seconds, Kory had ended his phone call and was coming back over to the conference table where Tommy still sat.
“What was that about?” Tommy asked him.
“Some personal shit with my old lady. Nothing, in other words.”
“The girl that just left,” Tommy said.
“Yeah, what about her?” Kory asked.
“Find a way, without her suing our asses, to get rid of her.”
Kory smiled. Was he sleeping with that girl? He’d heard Tommy only went for the black girls, but maybe he’d heard wrong. “May I ask why?” he asked.
“She’s looking to sleep her way to the top. I don’t want her entrapping any of my top people with accusations we can’t disprove.”
Always about the business with Tommy, Kory thought with a smile. He should have known he wouldn’t mix business with pleasure. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Consider her gone.”
Tommy nodded. He hated losing talent, but he wasn’t about to let anybody interfere with the seamless running of his corporation.
“When do you plan to get Sal involved?” Kory asked. “I’m hoping it’s before Joe DeLuca get his hands on our mall property.”
“Sal will be in town next week. I’ll talk to him then.”
“Good. I don’t want us losing that fine piece of real estate. If we lose that, our dream of Seattle expansionism will be over.” Then he smiled. “Mrs. Gabrini, hello!”
Tommy, hearing his wife’s name, turned quickly. When he saw Grace standing in the middle of his opened office door, with her long hair out of its work bun and dropped down her back, framing her face, he jumped to his feet.
Kory smiled. Tommy Gabrini jumped for no man, and there were many powerful men that walked through that door. But he always jumped to attention whenever Grace came around. Kory was married, too, and he wished he could have such reverence for his wife the way Tommy reverenced Grace. But his bitch, he inwardly thought, didn’t deserve it.
“I’m off,” he said to his boss, told Grace goodbye, and then headed out. But he knew Grace Gabrini didn’t come to that office that time of night for the hell of it. After locking the door, he closed it behind him.
CHAPTER FOUR
After Kory left, Tommy went over to Grace and kissed her on the lips. “What are you doing here?” he asked her. “The kids okay?”
“They’re fine. The nannies are with them. I came to see you.”
“What about?”
“I’m a very patient woman, Tommy. And I’m always defending you and what you’re trying to do here at GCI, because I understand what you’re trying to do. But you have a family too.”
As soon as she spoke those words, Tommy hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Ah, shit!” he said. “I forgot about dinner. I promised to be home for dinner, didn’t I?”
“Your children were so disappointed! I phoned you, but it went to Voice Mail.”
“We were in a meeting. My phone was off. Gotdammit!” Tommy was upset with himself.
“They truly believed you when you said you were turning over a new leaf and would spend more time with them,” Grace said. “Destiny took that to heart.”
Tommy believed it too when he said it to his children the day after Grace’s accident. And already he’d fucked up. He shook his head, angry at his own shortfall. “I’m sorry, babe,” he said. “Time got away from me again.”
“If you don’t want your children to get away from you, you’ve got to do better, Tommy. I mean that. This is not a debatable point!”
Tommy exhaled, and nodded his head. “I don’t know what gets into me. The economy’s bad, and global corporations like mine aren’t immune anymore. Nobody’s too big to fail anymore.”
“And I know that,” Grace agreed. “Look at Trammel.” Trammel Trucking was now one of Seattle’s best companies, thanks to Grace’s hard work and Tommy’s early injection of capital. But it almost didn’t make it. “It’s been going through a lot of changes, too, lately. I know it’s tough. And I know you’re trying to solidify your hold on more Seattle properties. I know you’re doing that for your family, so that you can spend more time in Seattle rather than all of the globetrotting you have to do. I know all of that, Tommy.”
“But?”
“But the kids come first,” Grace said firmly. “Bottom line. They will never be young and impressionable again. We have to put our stamp on them now, or we won’t ever get that chance to do so. You should have seen them tonight. I cooked spaghetti, their favorite. And they hardly touched it. They were so disappointed!”
Tommy rubbed his forehead. Grace could see how angry he was at himself for failing his children one more time. She knew he wasn’t that kind of thoughtless man. But sometimes his actions were. “Let’s make a deal,” she said to him.
Tommy looked at her. “What kind of deal?”
“Whenever you’re almost late for dinner, or anything else, I’ll phone and remind you. But you’ve got to keep your phone on, even in meetings.”
Tommy nodded. “I can do that.”
“That’s my end of the deal,” Grace said. “Your end of the deal is that you’ll drop whatever it
is you’re doing, and I don’t care what it is, and get home, or wherever you’ve promised to be with us. I’ll help you. I’ll remind you. But you’ve got to get it done. Think you can do that, Tommy?”
Tommy smiled and pulled Grace to him. He placed his arms around her waist. He didn’t deserve a woman this understanding. She didn’t judge him, because she understood what he was doing. But she didn’t let him get away with bullshit either, not when it harmed their children. She was a mother and a wife above all else. And these women out here thought they could just snatch him away from her. They were delusional, he thought. He loved Grace unlike he had ever loved a human being before. “Yes,” he said to her. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Grace smiled her big, bright-white smile. “Good,” she said.
But Tommy was staring at her. “I know Des and TJ were disappointed. But what about you? Were you disappointed, too, Grace?”
“Yes, Tommy, of course I was.”
“Why? You know me by now. You know how I am.”
“And I also know what you’re capable of. Sometimes you’re a great father. Sometimes you’re absent. Our children deserve a great father all the time, not sometimes. That’s why I was disappointed. I thought you knew that too. And now we have a baby on the way. We’ve got to get this right, Tommy.”
Tommy nodded his head. He couldn’t disagree with the truth.
He looked at Grace again. He loved everything about her. Her smarts. Her simple beauty. Her love for her family. She did wonderful things to his heart.
But right now, his eyes were moving downward, to her lips, and her breasts. She was doing wonderful things to a different member. Because he was getting an erection just holding her, and looking at her, and being with her. He leaned down, and kissed her on her lips.
When she started kissing him back, his passion took over. He wanted her and wasn’t willing to wait. He lifted her into his arms and sat her onto his conference table. He unzipped her dress halfway down and removed it from her shoulders. He lifted her bra, and began feasting on her breasts.
Tommy Gabrini: A Family Man Page 3
