TOMMY GABRINI 2: A PLACE IN HIS HEART (3 page)

Tommy
didn’t respond to that.
 
But Sal was
still befuddled.
 
“Why?” he asked.
 
“After Shanks, why would you want to put
yourself through that kind of shit again?”

Tommy
turned sideways, now facing his brother, and leaned against the window
frame.
 
“She deserves better than what
I’ve been giving her, that’s the bottom line.
 
I’m rarely in town, I’m always on the go when I am in town, and when I
do spend time with her it’s always on my terms.”

“Of course
it’s on your terms!
 
You have a global
business to run.
 
Grace understands
that.”

“Her
understanding it doesn’t make it right,” Tommy made clear.
 
“What I came to realize is that I’ve been
treating her the way I treated my other women.
 
As if we were in some uncommitted, open relationship, when we most
definitely are not.
 
So after that
craziness with Shanks I thought long and hard about what it was I really wanted
in this life.
 
I decided I want Grace in
my life, above anything else.
 
I want
Grace.
 
But I wasn’t going to keep her if
I didn’t make some drastic changes.”
 
Then a frown came on his face.
 
“I
wasn’t treating her right,” he added.

“But
that’s bullshit, Tommy,” Sal said, refusing to agree.
 
“I’m sorry, but it is.
 
You treat her like a fucking princess, what
are you talking?
 
Princess Grace, that’s
what we call her behind her back.
 
Yeah,
you’re more experienced than she is, and I get that.
 
But you baby her, Tommy.
 
You hold her hand, you pamper her, I’d bet
even she has to tell your ass to lighten up.
 
The way you treat her compared to all those other women in your past,
it’s no contest!”

“But
I don’t want her to be compared to any of those other women,” Tommy said
irritably, pointing at his brother, as he pushed from the window frame and began
walking across the room.
 
He glanced back
at him as he walked.
 
“That’s the point,”
he added.

Sal’s
tired blue eyes followed his brother’s movements.
 
He was proud of his brother for taking this
major step, but he was terrified for him too.
 
Tommy was a lover, and all the women who’d ever been with him always
treated him as if they had some rock star in their beds.
 
Those same women, many of whom were among
America’s most beautiful themselves, wasn’t going to stand for this.
 
Sal knew it.
 
He wondered, however, if Tommy really knew it.
 
And more importantly, if he had prepared
Grace.

“I’m
not comparing her to those other girls,” Sal said, “but I know for a fact some
of those females aren’t going to take this news too kindly.
 
I don’t know much, but I know a hellava lot
about females, big brother, and I know you don’t play with their emotions.
 
Especially black chicks.”

“You
don’t play with anybody’s emotions,” Tommy replied as he stood at the
granite-top center island inside his open door, room-sized, walk-in
closet.
 
“Race has nothing to do with
it,” he added as he grabbed his belt from a hangar and began putting it on.

Sal
began walking toward Tommy.
 
“But you
like those sophisticated ladies, that’s what I mean.
 
Ladies accustomed to getting what they want.
 
And I don’t see gals like that giving you up
so easily.”

“They
have nothing to do with this,” Tommy said with a little annoyance in his
voice.
 
He looked over at Sal.
 
Sal’s breath caught when he saw the strain in
his brother’s eyes.
 
“There’s nothing for
them to give up anyway.
 
I haven’t been
with any of those females in months, not since I made a commitment to Grace.”

“But
you understand what I’m saying, right?” Sal asked as he leaned his elbows on
the center island.
 
“Those women expect
there to be times when you don’t phone or come around.
 
They expect cooling off periods.
 
But in those open relationships like every
single one you’ve ever been in before Grace, they figure you’ll be back.
 
Give you some cooling off time and you’ll be
back.
 
But for them to find out that it’s
not just that you have your attention on some new chick, but that you’ve asked
that chick to marry you?”
 
Sal shook his
head.
 
“Hell is about to go in session,
big brother, and you’d better get Grace ready for that.”

Tommy
grabbed his wallet off of the top of the island.
 
Up close the strain was even greater in his
brother’s big eyes, as if he was concerned about far more than females from his
past.
 

But
it was Sal, once again, who spoke up.
 
“What I don’t think you’re remembering is that, yes, they did accept
your engagement to Shanks when you were engaged to her, and they didn’t make
any big deal over that.
 
But that was
because Shanks was your oldest relationship.
 
They figured she would be first in line if it ever came to that
anyway.
 
But this new chick?
 
This Grace McKinsey?
 
They figure she should be last in line, not
first.
 
And some of them aren’t going to
stand for it, I’m telling you, Tommy.”

“They’ll
have no choice,” Tommy said as he put his wallet in his back pocket and began
putting on his Rolex.
 
Sal was talking
like there was this cabal of women plotting and scheming as if they had nothing
better to do with their very busy lives.
 
Tommy never fooled around with insecure females.
 
Every single woman he’d had in his bed had a
full, productive life of her own.
 
Like
him, she just wanted that occasional good sex.
 
Nothing more, nothing less.

But
Sal wasn’t convinced.
 
He watched his
brother carefully.
 
In Sal’s mind, Tommy
always had this monumental lack of insight in the power of his beauty.
 
He viewed himself as just another decent
looking guy who won all the beauty queens because of how he treated them.
 
He might have kept them because of his treatment,
Sal would admit.
 
But he won them because
of his looks.
 

Then
Grace came along, a real sweetheart who managed to do what none of those
supermodel types had ever been able to do: she not only won Tommy’s body, but
she won his devotion.
 
Tommy cared deeply
about Grace, Sal was convinced of it, which made him all the more worried.
 
Grace was an innocent guppy compared to the
piranhas Tommy normally swam with.
 
Those
women were going to eat her alive.

“When’s
the big day?” he asked his brother.

“Well
damn,” Tommy said with a smile that pleased Sal.
 
“I just asked her last night.
 
We haven’t set a date yet.”

 
“And why the hell not?
 
If you’re gonna do this, and you’re sure
about it, I think you should get married right away.
 
The sooner the better.
 
Because the sooner those bitches see just how
serious you are about your commitment to Grace, the sooner they’ll move on with
their lives.”

“Will
you stop worrying so much?” Tommy asked this as he turned toward his
brother.
 
At thirty-five, Sal was four
years younger than Tommy, but their relationship was such that it might as well
have been a fourteen-year difference.
 
Mainly because of the way their parents treated them when they were
younger, with Sal being considered the black sheep of the family, and Tommy
considered the golden child.
 

But
Tommy wouldn’t stand for the treatment and would always go into
protect Sal
mode as early as either one
of them could remember.
 
Their parents
would place their uncommonly good looking and smart son Tommy on every
pedestal, parading him around as if he were a peacock, but Tommy would always
reach down and pull Sal right up alongside him.
 
Tommy hated their favoritism with a passion, especially since it meant
ill-treatment of his baby brother Sal, and he never forgave his parents because
of it.
 

For
that very reason, Tommy was Sal’s hero early on, the one human being he loved
above any other, and remained his hero today.
 
But their relationship reversed on them.
 
Now, as grown men nearing middle age, it was Sal who was even more
protective of Tommy.
 

“I
worry,” Sal admitted, “because I don’t want to see you get hurt, and I don’t
want Grace hurt.”

“Understood.”

“But
did you at least warn her about your, whatta you call,
rich
history with women?”

“Yes,
Sal, I warned her.”

“And
she still wants to marry you?”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“Yes, Salvatore, she still
wants to marry me.”

“Then
what’s the big holdup?
 
Why not do it
right away?”

Tommy
had been thinking about this a lot longer than Sal realized.
 
“Because,” he said, “if there is to be any
unexpected drama I want it out in the open before she walks down that aisle.”

Sal
frowned.
 
“Why would you want that?” he
asked with puzzlement in his voice.

“Because
I want her to have a chance to change her mind,” Tommy said, and Sal could see
the sudden pain in his brother’s greenish-blue eyes.
 
“I want her to understand what she’s getting
herself into.”

Sal
nodded.
 
Tommy had thought this through
more than he had figured.

“And
besides,” Tommy continued, walking out of the closet, “she’s now the majority
shareholder in Trammel, and she needs time to get adjusted to that big-ass
headache of a challenge.”

Sal,
who was following his brother, stopped in his tracks.
 
“Majority shareholder?
 
How could she hold the majority of the shares
in Trammel?
 
You have the majority of the
shares, although I don’t see why you even bother with that tiny little piss-ass
company when we have a conglomerate to run.”
 
Then Sal got it.
 
“Are you saying
you gave it up?
 
Are you saying you gave
Grace your shares?”

Tommy
exhaled.
 
“That’s what I’m saying, yeah,”
he said.

“All
of them?”

“Yes.
 
She already owned ten percent of her own,
thanks to her deceased father.
 
Now she’s
the majority owner of Trammel outright.”

Sal
could hardly believe it.
 
“But . . . what
about your chairmanship?
 
You’re still
chairman of the board, though, right?”

 
Tommy nodded.
 
“For now, yes.”
 
Then he
smiled.
 
“Unless Grace wants to make a
change.”

“But
what about Jillian?
 
What’s Jilly saying
about all of this?”
 

“We
have a board meeting Monday morning over at Trammel.
 
That’s when Grace is due back to work.
 
Everybody will be notified then.”

“Including
Jillian?”

“Including
Jilly,” Tommy said with a nod.
 

But
Sal could hardly believe it.
 
He was
thunderstruck.
 
“I’ll be damn,” he
finally said, staring at his older brother as if he was seeing him for the
first time.
 
To give a female an entire
company?
 
Yeah, it was a company barely
on Tommy’s radar screen in terms of his holdings in various ventures, but it
was still an entire company he just gave to her.
 
And Sal was floored by that kind of
devotion.
 
He’d never seen anything like
it before in his life.
 
“You aren’t
shitting around, are you?” he asked his brother.
 
“You really love this girl.”

Tommy
ran his hand across his forehead.
 
Although he was smiling, Sal could still see that strain in his
eyes.
 
“Is it that obvious?” he asked
with a laugh that even Sal, his biggest supporter, just couldn’t return.