Gemma closed hers. If she went with Sal right now she would be agreeing to live his lifestyle. She would be choosing to live close to the edge when she was never that kind of risk taker. This wasn’t about loving a man with a fault here and there. This was about loving a man who might have to take somebody’s life every now and then. This was about loving a man who might have “situations” and “entanglements” that would force him to break the law every now and then. And she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if she could make that choice.
And Sal, devastated, but with no more rabbits in his hat to pull, left.
Gemma covered her face, and sobbed loudly.
Sal got out of Reno’s limo and walked slowly toward his waiting aircraft. There was no way he could have felt more alone. He even begged her, he even gave her his heart on a silver platter, and she didn’t know what to say? He knew he had issues, but he was certain they could overcome those issues. What did she want from him? How could he overcome being a Gabrini? Was that what she wanted? He wasn’t going to pretend he could change that, because he knew he couldn’t. If Tommy or Reno were ever in trouble, he was going to be there for them. That was a fact he couldn’t change. But Gemma, he realized sadly, wasn’t able to accept that fact.
Once he was seated on his plane, it began to slowly head for the runway to begin its taxi for takeoff. He didn’t want to think about Gemma as he sat there, but she was all he could think about. He didn’t think he could love another woman more than he loved her. But just as the love he gave wasn’t enough for his mother, nor his father, it was apparently not enough for her.
He looked out of the window. At first he didn’t even recognize what he was seeing. But when he realized it was her BMW speeding across the airstrip, he at first thought it was a mirage. He had to be dreaming! But when he looked closer and realized it wasn’t a dream, he became so disconcerted that he was actually upset that she was speeding and could lose control and harm herself.
“Stop the plane!” he yelled with a trembling voice as he bolted from his seat. And then he remembered to lift the phone, the only way to communicate with the cockpit. “Stop the plane!” he ordered. “Stop it now!”
And the plane suddenly stopped its slow taxi toward the runway. The door of the plane dropped open, and Sal, his heart hammering, stood at the door looking out.
Gemma got out of her car and began running toward the plane. Sal would have run to her, but he was too stricken. He was so filled with hope, and so certain that he was foolish to hope, that he was paralyzed by his own sense of dread.
Until Gemma ran up to him. Tears were in her big, beautiful eyes. “I choose you,” she said, as she looked up at him. “I choose you.”
Sal began to descend the plane. He held onto the railing as he walked down should his buckling knees collapse and cause him to fall. When he made it to her, and touched her arms, and realized she wasn’t a mirage, that this wasn’t a dream, he let out an exhale that brought tears to his eyes.
“I choose you, Sal,” she said again, their tears flowing freely now. “I love you, and I want you. I choose you.”
Sal pulled her against him so hard that she rammed against him. She could hardly breathe. And he cried like a baby as he held her. He knew his flight crew could have been watching him. He knew any other eyes at that airstrip could have been watching too. But he didn’t give a damn.
He had Gemma.
At that moment, as he held the love of his life, nothing else mattered to Sal Gabrini.
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ROMANCING SAL GABRINI Page 20
