Personal Shopper (2 page)

Laura stood and
returned his smile. "Oh, no problem," she said. "It actually helped me out.
Ever since your receptionist made the appointment I've been wracking my brain
trying to figure out why your name sounded so familiar. Now I know. You're the
security guy.
From those commercials - the one who says 'Your
security is my business.'"

Max Greenway
laughed. "Well, that wasn't exactly my idea. My PR guy thought it would be a
good idea if the founder and CEO of Greenway Security Systems also doubled as
the pitch man. The ads have been effective. My only critic is my mother. She
thinks I look too serious. But it's like I've told her. I'm serious about
security. It's important. It's a bad thing, feeling insecure.

Laura gave a sad
smile at the irony of the comment. "Yes, it is
,"
she
said and then blushed and stood. "So, here's the information on my services. I
offer full service shopping, online or otherwise. Of course, I'll need
clearance to access any accounts you have at stores around town and passwords
to online merchants. I'm licensed and bonded - you'll find paperwork on that in
the packet, along with references. There's a list of fee for what I offer as
well and gift wrapping is available, unless, of course you want me to book a
cruise. I don't wrap boats."

Max Greenway
looked up and grinned. "Do you charge extra for the jokes?"

Laura blushed.
"No, jokes are free.
Part of my holiday special."

"That's good to
know," he said, leaning forward and putting his hands on his desk. "But jokes
aside, just because I'm hiring you doesn't mean I don't want input. The only
reason I'm going this route is because we're seeing an increase in business
right now and the holidays have taken me by surprise. But I expect you to keep
in touch with me so I can approve your purchases. And if I decide something
isn't appropriate, I expect you to exchange it so the recipient doesn't have
to."

Laura felt a bit
taken aback, but tried not to show it. What did he think she was, an idiot?

"That's why I
ask to meet face to face with my clients," she said slowly. "So I can ask
questions about the people on their list and get an idea of what would truly
please them." She stopped. "I've been doing this for several years now, Mr.
Greenway. I may not be a rocket scientist, but I'm an excellent shopper."

His expression
was unreadable. "Sold," he said. "I like a person with some self-assurance. But
I still expect you to check in with me daily. My receptionist, Jean, will get
you all the information I need. But I also want you to be creative." Max
Greenway reached into his pocket and took out his wallet, and
begin
counting out bills. He handed them to Laura. Find some
things off the beaten path. Here's $1,500. Make sure you ask Jean for a
receipt."

"OK," Laura
said, taking the money and trying to act as if she was handed large amounts of
dollars in cash every day.

For the next
hour, Max Greenway went through his list of friends and relatives, stating
likes and dislikes. His 80-year-old mother was an avid reader, he said, and
especially loved books on nature. Jean, who helped him with shopping, was about
to have surgery. Laura recommended a package of comfort items so she could
pamper herself during her recuperation. Max Greenway liked the idea and told
her so.

"And
your spouse?"
Laura asked.

"There's no
spouse," he said. "Not that I haven't tried to find one. They just don't make
the model of woman I'm looking for anymore."

Laura laughed.
"And what model is that?
Supermodel?"

"The opposite,"
Max Greenway said. "I'm more interested in a homebody than a hard body. I want
someone who values hearth and home, old fashioned values, the guy wearing the
pants in the family...all that jazz. I can't tell most women that without them
checking my knuckles for scrape marks."

Laura rolled her
eyes. "Yeah, yeah," she laughed. "You guys say that but just as soon as you get
Mrs. Homebody you up and go leave her for Miss Hard Body. Believe me, I know
from personal experience."

Her client
looked her up and down. "So which one were you?" he asked.

"What?" Laura
fixed him with a puzzled look.

"Were you Mrs.
Homebody or Miss Hard Body?"

Laura blushed
deeply. "I was the homebody," she said quietly. "I still am, when I have time.
The only man in my life now appreciates that."

"He's a lucky
man," said Max Greenway.

"Yes, and he's
going to be an angry man if I'm late picking him up from school," she said.

"Oh, you were
talking about a child." He stood as she did, and crossed his arms over his
broad chest. Laura felt very small in his presence. He was a good foot taller
than her, and well-built. She worked out religiously and knew a body like that
on a man his age didn't come without real work.

"Yeah," she
said.
"My little boy, Evan."

"He's a lucky
man." Max Greenway walked over to the door and Laura was relieved he was in
front of her now and couldn't see her blushing again. She felt she'd acted more
like a silly schoolgirl than a professional and felt irritated that she'd let
herself be so easily flattered. But she'd landed the account; that was what
mattered, and for all the hours he wanted her to put in she might just finally
get ahead of the game.

***

Max Greenway
wasn't born into success. He'd dropped out of college to help his mother
support the family, which included him and his four younger siblings, after his
father had died of a heart attack.

His mother had
insisted that he stay in. She could get a job, she said. There was no need for
him to give up his dream. But Max Greenway, who'd come from a long line of men
who believed a woman's place was in the home, wouldn't hear of it. At 19, he'd
become the head of the household, allowing his mother to supplement the income
with at-home work.

"The little ones
need you more than the shoe department at Belk's," he'd told her one afternoon
when she insisted he at least consent to letting her work part time.

He was so much
like his father - stalwart and responsible - that his mere presence around the
house made his mother both proud and wistful by terms. And, infected with the
famous Greenway work ethic, he took over running his father's roofing business
with such confidence that it scarcely missed a beat.

He came into the
security business by accident when he began to help a friend in construction
install systems he designed. For several years he worked several weekends a
month, installing the systems and even helping design ways to make them better.
When the man, who'd originally been a friend of his father's, was diagnosed
with cancer, he sold the business to Max and Greenway Security Systems was
born. Within four years, it became far more lucrative than roofing, which was
subject to the weather.

The Max Greenway
was successful in business, but not in love. He was a very conservative man who
knew what he wanted - a woman like mom, but with a twist, for Max Greenway had
a secret that was a little hard to
raise
in the dating
world. Max Greenway wanted a woman he could spank.

He wasn't a
cruel man, or a bully. He just believed household's function well with a
decisive male leader who had the backbone to turn his wife over his knee if she
needed correction. He didn't deny that he had a strong erotic connection to
spanking; he spent a fair amount of time surfing spanking Web sites in his
locked office at home. But he believed spanking was brilliant as a disciplinary
tool as well and longed for a day when he could find a woman who'd submit to
spanking for punishment and pleasure.

He knew there
were scores of women surfing the Internet chat rooms who'd consider him a find,
but he didn't want someone completely savvy to the "scene." Max had dated a
number of them and enjoyed spanking their eagerly offered bottoms. But he was a
traditionalist and wanted to find someone through normal dating channels.
Unfortunately, they were all turning into dead ends.

But Max Greenway
was an optimist. Somewhere, he thought, there must be a woman out there - the
perfect woman he could claim, guide and love forever.

Chapter
Two

Laura pulled up
to the front of Little Friends Day School fifteen minutes before the end of the
school day, giving herself enough time to go by the office and speak with the
finance director. In the past, the small private school had been accommodating,
even though they'd not been happy about it.

As she walked up
the steps she practiced what she'd say. She'd tell them what had happened with
Mrs.
Tighlman
, that
she'd intended to have at least part of the money
today. Now all of it would have to wait, but she would have it, she would.
Just next week if they'd be so kind to wait.
She was just
having problems right now and Evan's father had not followed through on his
promise to pay....

Mrs. Beale, the
finance director, didn't smile when Laura walked in. "I was going to call you
today," she said, adjusting her glasses across the bridge of her beak-line
nose.

Laura sat down
in the chair across from the desk and took a deep breath. "Yes, I know," she
said. "I know Evan's tuition is way past due, but his father promised to pay
and then today a client postponed paying me until next week..." The words gushed
out, making her sound far more desperate and far less composed than she'd
intended. "...and if you can just wait until next week I'll be able to have most
of it."

But Mrs. Beale
was shaking her head. "I'd love to extend the deadline for you, I really would,
Laura. But I just can't. We have to have $1,000 in tuition by five o'clock this
afternoon to keep Evan enrolled."

"Today?"
Laura looked
puzzled. "That' can't be! I thought it was Friday!" She put her head in her
hands.
"Oh God."

"I'm sorry,
Laura," said Mrs. Beale. "I don't like being in this position. I wish we could
offer your son a scholarship, but with budget cuts this year, we can't. I'm
sure you can get him in P.S. 41 very easily."

Laura looked up
in anger. P.S. 41
was
notorious for being a
substandard school. Besides that, it was in a dangerous part of town. The idea
of Evan going there was unthinkable. In fact, it made her angry. Then -
suddenly - she realized she had a way out.

"Evan won't be
going to P.S. 41," she snapped. "My son is staying right here." Laura fumbled
through the purse in her lap until she found what she was looking for - ten
crisp one hundred dollar bills.

"Here," she
said, thrusting the money to a shocked Mrs. Beale. "And I'd like a receipt."

***

Evan was a
chatterbox on the way home, but Laura could barely hear him through her fog of
worry. She couldn't believe what she'd done.

"....and she said
I was brilliant as Joseph. There's an Easter play in April," Evan was saying.
"So maybe you won't have to shop."

She felt her
pain compounded. Not only had she missed Evan's Christmas play, she was even
too distracted to listen to what he was saying about it."

"Of course I
will," she said woodenly.

She sighed as
she pulled into the bank parking lot and pulled it out - her emergency,
high-interest credit card, the only card she had left in both her and her
estranged husband's name. It was what they had always called their escape-hatch
card, the plastic they would only use as a last resort,
so
much a last resort that neither of them had thought to cancel it after their
parting. She'd known when she used Max Greenway's cash at the school that she
could pull cash off this card immediately, so that was not really what was
bothering her. The fact was that the interest rate would kill her and that Clay
would probably not help her pay it back, but she'd deal with that later. The
school didn't take credit cards, or she would have used it there.

The ATM sucked
the card in and Laura entered the information on the keypad and waited. At first,
she thought she was misreading the "funds unavailable" message that appeared on
the screen. "Would you like to make another transaction?" the ATM prompted.

"Hell yes, I
would," thought Laura, and tried again with the same sickening results.
Frantically, she ejected the card and put it in again with shaking hands,
trying for progressively smaller amounts. Finally, it gave her a $120 cash
advance. Laura took it with hands gone numb from fear.

Back at home,
she couldn't dial the credit card company fast enough. What she found out made
her blood boil. The "emergency" credit card had seen a flurry of activity over
the past three
weeks ,
and not for emergencies. She
listened in stony silence as the representative ticked through the charges -
dinner at the Olive Garden, concert tickets from Ticket Max, and at least seven
trips to Velvet Nights.