Lauren blotted her eyes with the napkin. “You really are the real deal, aren’t you?” she asked. “My parents are fine financially. They’ve made good investments, but Dad won’t step into the twenty-first century. However, he might listen to Mr. G. Dad’s a man’s man. He’s a good person. I feel like I’ve just bad-mouthed him, but I don’t want to see Razzle Dazzle fail any more than he does. I think he just hates hearing it from me.”

Mr. G came in from the terrace, a cherry-smelling smoke emanating from his clothes. John was right behind him. “You two get all cleaned up?”

“We did,” Sandra Marie said, “and I want to talk to you about a new business opportunity.”

Friday night, December 6, would be a night to remember for Lauren because it was the night that the Giampalo family became her second family.

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The next several weeks went by in a flash. After Lauren returned from Seattle, they managed to get through the holidays. When Lauren could take time off from her writing, she and her mother baked, shopped, and decorated, and did all their usual traditional care packages for several local charities. Her mother and father purchased dozens of toys for those less fortunate. Mr. G matched their donations tenfold.

After the holidays, when Lauren settled down in earnest to write her biography of the founder and CEO of Global Goods, Mr. Giampalo made a special trip to Fallen Springs to thank her father personally for giving Lauren time away from her job at the store to complete a first draft of his biography in the six weeks she’d promised.

The two men meshed like peas in a pod. For weeks afterward, her father spoke to Mr. G on the phone, sent letters through the post office, and became impatient when he didn’t receive a speedy enough response from Mr. G, who was still at the helm of the biggest online retail business in the world. But he did send answers to all of her father’s letters, handwritten by him personally.

One day, a package from Global Goods arrived for her father via FedEx. He opened it but was completely clueless as to what it contained. However, there was a yellow slip of paper with the instruction PUSH THIS BUTTON. Her father pushed the button, and Mr. G himself appeared on the screen of the Global Goods digital notebook that Mr. G had sent.

“Al, listen, I’ve got a business proposition for you, and I can’t discuss it over the phone, and letters take too long. I want you to read the instructions I’ve personally handwritten, and I want you to follow them exactly.”