Free Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again by Mallory Monroe Page B

thought . . .” Then she shook her head
as if she was dismissing such a thought.   “I shouldn’t have come.”
    “It
was just all such a surprise, dear,” Cassie said.   “Your father wasn’t expecting you today.   It threw him, that’s all.   Why don’t you stay longer, like you planned,
and try to work things out?”
    Liz
looked at her.   “Work things out with a
man who hate her guts?   Work things out
with a man who wishes she was dead?”
    “No
thanks,” Chelsey said firmly, and she and Liz headed for the front door.
    Tommy
knew he shouldn’t get involved.   He knew
he should have let them sail their asses out that door exactly the way they
were doing.   And if it was just Chelsey,
he probably would have stayed out of it.   That daddy-daughter drama was between daddy and daughter as far as he
was concerned.   But Liz was with
her.   And as much as he hated to admit
it, he wasn’t ready to let her go.
    “Chelsey,
Liz,” he said.
    Liz
and Chelsey both stopped, which surprised Sal and Gemma given the way they were
so determinedly charging out of there, and then they turned around.
    “I’m
flying out to Rome tonight,” Tommy said.   “Will that get you two closer to where you need to go?”
    Tommy
could see the immediate acceptance from Chelsey’s body language alone.   She just wanted to get away from there.   But she was accustomed to taking her cues
from Liz.   She looked at Liz.  
    But
Liz, Tommy also noticed, was not so easily persuaded.   She wanted out too, but she wasn’t going to
leave any kind of way.   “So does that
mean you have a private jet that will take us there?” Liz asked him.
    But
now Sal took offense.   “What are you
asking questions for?” he asked her.   “My
brother is offering you a ride, lady.   What difference does it make in what?   He’s not gonna load you on the back of a turnip truck and take you
there, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    Liz
inwardly smiled at Sal’s snide remark, but she had her game face on right
now.   The fact that Tommy had offered
them this lift was huge.   Chelsey was
hurting, and needed to get away, and he intervened to help.   She liked that.   “It’ll get us closer to be sure,” she
said.   “Yes.”
    Sal
nodded and Gemma smiled.   “Well at least
that,” she said.   She didn’t want her
sister languishing all night in some hotel.   Then she rubbed her brother-in-law’s arm.   “Thanks, Tommy,” she said.   “Thank-you so very much.”
    Although
Tommy accepted her thanks, he had the oddest feeling that he didn’t need
it.   He had the oddest sensation that he
was the one who should be thankful.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER SIX

 
    He
stood at the bar inside his private jet and poured two glasses of wine.   But his eyes were primarily on Liz.   Chelsey was in one of the back cabins fast
asleep.   She said she was a little tired
and needed some shut-eye, but Tommy and Liz both knew better than that.   She was emotionally spent after the kind of
day she spent at her father’s house.   She’d be out all night.
    They
were in the air for a couple hours already, flying high above the clouds.   Tommy had been in the conference room,
preoccupied with phone calls and videoconferences he could not avoid, and he
was just getting a chance to relax at all.    And although Chelsey was in one of the private cabins fast asleep, Liz
was in the open cabin wide awake.   She
had her iPhone sitting beside her, on top of a small stack of files, and she
had her iPad on her lap, thumbing through what was undoubtedly her magazine’s
articles she needed to review.   Tommy
noticed how she would occasionally stop thumbing through her iPad and look out
the window, at the blackness that surrounded them, as if her mind had drifted
away in the clouds, and then she’d get back to work.
    After
pouring the drinks, he took both glasses and walked over to her elongated
seat.   He stood beside her