The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy

by Sandra Marton

  The F-Word

  A Sexy Romantic Comedy

  Sandra Marton

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  Also by Sandra Marton

  Copyright © 2017 by Sandra Marton

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-0-9972915-4-4

  1

  So let’s get this straight.

  This is a story about romance.

  Well, it’s not a story. I mean, it’s not something somebody made up. It’s about me. And yeah, in case you’re wondering, I’m a guy.

  Surprised? Sure you are. You figure those words just don’t go together. Romance, with a capital R. Guy, with a capital G. You’re probably sitting there and smirking. What could a dude possibly know about romance? You figure we’re big on sex. But romance?

  You’re right.

  Romance is not a male thing.

  And that’s exactly my problem.

  The bottom line is that whatever you think you know about men and romance is pretty much correct. You figure we’re big on the F-word as long as it stands for Fuck and not Forever.

  And we are.

  Sure, some of us fall off the cliff. Guys get engaged. They get married. If it works, good for them. Just leave the rest of us alone, okay?

  We like life precisely the way we’re living it. Unencumbered. Nobody to answer to. Work hard, play hard. Drive fast cars or do whatever it is that turns you on, lie around on fall and winter Sundays unshaven, a box of take-out pizza and a six pack of beer not more than a few inches away, and watch football until your eyes glaze over.

  And have sex.

  Lots of sex.

  Slow sex. Fast sex. Sex in five star hotel rooms. Got to say, there’s something special about banging a woman against a glass wall overlooking Manhattan. Or in the corner of a museum where somebody might walk by at any minute. Nothing wrong with beds, either. Big beds, with lots of room for action.

  Sex is always fine.

  Men like doing it, thinking about it, talking about it. Using all those four letter words to describe female parts and the male parts that go with them. And you’re already yawning because you figure that’s what this is about and, really, how many different ways can there be to describe—sorry, ladies—your basic fuck?

  Okay.

  But you’re wrong.

  One, that’s not what this is about.

  Two, I don’t believe in basic fucks. Each time is different. Not just positions. Fucking—sex, if you prefer that word—is never the same twice. At least, it shouldn’t be. There are endless variables. Where you are. How you’re feeling. Are you in the mood for fun? Maybe for something dark and a little dirty? Something accompanied by rose petals and moonlight? Let’s put it this way: If the man in your life delivers the same screw job day after day, year after year, I’m sorry for you.

  But, as I said before, none of that matters because that stuff doesn’t apply to this situation.

  See, this confession—I guess you’d call it that—this confession isn’t about fucking. Why would it be? As you may have already figured, based on what I said about basics, I’m just fine with fucking. In fact—not to be boastful or anything—I have been told that I’m just about perfect with it.

  Still, the truth is that dudes can have a good time just jacking off.

  Wait.

  I don’t mean that. Not exactly. Sex is a hell of a lot better with a woman than it is with your hand. What I’m trying to say is that the best part of sex is watching the woman I’m with get turned on. Watching her come. I love that, love knowing I’ve done that for her.

  So now you’re rolling your eyes and you’re calling me, what? An arrogant SOB? An egomaniac? A jerk?

  I’m not any of those things.

  I’m really a nice guy. Seriously. The people who work with me, who work for me—they all like me. Strangers have been known to smile at me, even in the subway where nobody smiles at anybody. I get along with little kids—my three-year-old niece adores me, but hey, the feeling is mutual. Dogs tend to wag their tails the minute they see me. Even cats purr when I pet them.

  Anyway, my best friend, Cooper Holloway, is into genetics. He’s got a doctorate in biology and he says none of this is my doing. He says it’s in my DNA and I shouldn’t feel so good about women finding me so, you know, fuckable.

  He’s also got the irritating habit of reminding me that he does as well with the ladies as I do. He says it’s his charm, good looks, and intelligence—but that it my case, it’s strictly my looks.

  In other words, I have my chromosomes to thank.

  See, for starters, I’m tall. Six feet three, and that’s without wearing my old, trusty roper boots. No, I’m not a cowboy. I just like roper boots. They work if I’m riding my Harley or driving the classic ’Vette that I restored, and they’re perfect if I have to pop onto a job site.

  Where was I?

  Chromosomes. Right. Well, mine gave me dark hair, kind of an inky black color. Blue eyes. Fairly regular features. And for the past couple of years I’ve had what my Mom calls facial fuzz.

  I also have this series of tattoos on my left arm and shoulder. Got them done years ago, in Kathmandu. Women seem to find them a turn-on, but I didn’t get them for that reason…

  More about that later.

  Did I mention I’m in construction? And design. O’Malley Design and Construction. That’s me. Maybe you’ve heard of us. If you live in the New York City suburbs, it’s a good bet that you have…

  Where was I?

  We were talking about genetics. DNA. The fact that I’m not bad looking.

  Okay. I’m good looking.

  A guy stopped me on the corner of Madison and 47th last month. Said I reminded him of Liam Hemsworth and was I interested in a new career.

  This made for two problems.

  The first was that I almost killed the poor bastard.

  I grabbed him by his necktie and hauled him to his toes before he could choke out that he wasn’t hitting on me. He was an agent for a modeling agency. Yeah, I know. Gay pride. The Rainbow Coalition. I’m all for everybody’s civil rights, including my right to be a heterosexual male.

  The second problem was that after I’d dusted him off, attempted to straighten his tie and said thanks but no thanks to the idea of becoming a male model, I had to pop into the Starbucks up the block, take out my iPhone and check to see who Liam Hemsworth is.

  An actor, it turns out. An Aussie. And, okay, I can see the similarities. We’re both tall, blue-eyed, square-jawed. Hemsworth looks as if he works out. I don’t, unless you call running or playing soccer on Sundays in Central Park or occasionally swinging a hammer or loading pallets at one of my construction sites a workout.

  I kind of like to keep my hand in, so to speak.

  And my hair’s darker than this Liam guy, but you get the picture.

  I look okay.

  And—do you hear me knocking on wood? I have a good life.

  Nice family, st
arting with my mom and dad. He’s a retired contractor. He owned his own business—small, not big, but he had a rep for being the guy you wanted if you wanted a job done right. I worked for him during the summers from the time I was fourteen straight through college.

  Well, almost straight through.

  The summer I graduated from college, I didn’t work for him.

  More about that later. Maybe.

  Because, you know, this isn’t a trip down memory lane. I’m just trying to give you some background so you can understand how I got myself into this situation.

  Mom’s an English teacher. She’s retired too, but you say something dumb like him and me and she’ll look you straight in the eye and tell you it’s he and I. When I was in my teens and she did that to my buddies, even though she did it nicely, I wanted to crawl away and die. Here’s the best way to tell you what kind of mom she is—she figured out that those polite corrections just about killed me and she stopped doing it. At least, she let me think she’d stopped doing it. Years later, friends admitted she’d wait until she was alone with whatever kid had just tried to murder the English language and she’d gently offer the correction, and you know what?

  They all said they’d been grateful.

  I have a sister. Casey. She’s two years older than I am—you didn’t really think I’d say she was two years older than me, did you? We hated each other through elementary school, middle school and part of high school. Then I turned sixteen and she turned eighteen and we looked at each other and saw two human beings instead of two siblings, and we’ve been close ever since. She’s married now, to a terrific guy, and I already mentioned the little niece who owns my heart…

  See?

  No joke. I really am a nice guy. And okay looking.

  Fuckable—although the F word that’s turned out to be my problem is a very different one.

  It’s Forever.

  Which is what this is all about.

  Yes, I have a serious problem. Or, at least, I had a serious problem. And yes, I walked straight into it because I am what I just said. A nice guy. And because there are people out there who think the Answer to Everything is Finding the Right One.

  Your Forever Person.

  Crap.

  I’m confusing you. I’m confusing myself. So let me back up and start from the beginning. Let me start from when I walked into my office at eight in the morning a few weeks ago…

  2

  My office—actually, a sprawling glass-and-cedar building we designed and built on a couple of acres of woods and meadows—is located just outside New York City in a town called Bedford. I designed the building and the grounds it stands on and, of course, my company built it. It’s a great-looking property and I’m lucky to have a great staff, starting with my PA, Bailey Abrams.

  Bailey snags me as I step through the door.

  “There’s a problem at the Schecter site,” she says.

  I roll my eyes. “And a happy good morning to you, too.”

  Bailey doesn’t even blink and she doesn’t slow her pace as she trots alongside me to my office. I have long legs and a long stride, and generally I have to slow down so a woman can keep up with me, even the tallest ones, because they wear those short, tight little dresses and those ridiculous nosebleed heels.

  Trust me. In a national election, I’d vote for both.

  But this is my office, where practicality counts. And Bailey is practical. She’s down-to-earth. She’s not into how she looks. She wears suits and sneakers. The sneakers make it easy for her to cover enough ground to match my pace, and the skirts of those suits are what women call A-shaped. A-line. Whatever. You know what I mean. They’re full enough so she can move fast and they’re dark in color, probably because that’s also practical when she’s always rushing around bringing me my coffee—not that I ask her to do that. I mean, I’m an equal op kind of dude. No sexism here, but Bailey thinks keeping me caffeinated is in her job description. Plus she’s always handling chalk, scratching my schedule on a chalkboard because I like to be able to look up and see it, cross out stuff, add stuff…

  The point is, Bailey is just what I need.

  She’s been with me from my Wall Street days. Did I mention Wall Street? I guess I should have. I started there with a degree in finance straight out of New York University. Yeah, NYU, where I studied finance on a full scholarship.

  Fooled you, right? You thought you had me all figured out. First you pegged me as some rich guy from a wealthy family, and I bet you pictured me spending my college years partying, skiing, living life in the fast lane. Then you decided I was a jock and I’d gone to some big Midwestern university on an athletic scholarship.

  Wrong.

  I’m rich, but I made all my money myself.

  I did my share of partying when I was in college—doesn’t everybody? But not anymore.

  As for skiing—Yeah. I ski every chance I get. I’m into sports, not just as an observer but as a doer. I was Jerome High School’s quarterback; I played midfield on Jerome’s soccer team. I ran, I swam, I surfed—bet you didn’t know we surf here on the East coast—and I still love all that stuff, but I also have a functional brain. That’s what got me into NYU on a full scholarship and into a high-profile job with a hedge fund called Hinchley-Finch.

  I stayed with them for three years.

  Three endless, agonizing years because it took me that long to finally figure out that no matter how much money I made—and, trust me, I made lots—I was never going to be happy managing the portfolios of rich dudes who drank fifty-year-old Scotch in the evenings and played endless rounds of golf on the weekends.

  Three years in, I took a deep breath, quit my job, went back to school for some courses in architectural design and opened O’Malley Design and Construction.

  Of course, I’m glossing over the scary spots.

  Like cashing in what I’d invested in stocks in those three years. It was—to me, anyway—a small fortune, but I needed the money to buy two incredibly expensive acres of land in Rye—that’s an upscale town outside New York City—and put up a four bedroom, five bathroom contemporary complete with gardens and an infinity pool, all on spec. Spec is shorthand for sinking money into a house nobody’s asked you to build, meaning you put it up, cross your fingers and hope like hell somebody’s gonna come along and fall in love with the place because if nobody does…

  But someone did. And that’s how I started O’Malley Design and Construction.

  With those first bucks safely in the bank, I drew up plans for my headquarters building—and phoned Bailey, who had been my PA at Hinchley-Finch.

  “I need a personal assistant,” I told her, and before I had the chance to finish explaining my new life and the fact that, for now, I could only afford to pay her half what she was worth, she interrupted and said yes, fine, she’d take the job.

  And she’s perfect for it. She’s organized. Smart. Dedicated. Even better, she doesn’t find me intimidating—some people do. She doesn’t, you know, drool over me either. She doesn’t see me as a guy. And I don’t see her as a woman.

  I’m getting sidetracked here.

  Why was Bailey exactly what I needed? Because she’s a levelheaded, work-oriented person. We have an excellent relationship. She’s a nice girl, she’s bright and quick, and—let me get this out of the way even if it’s gonna tick off some of you—she’s not any kind of distraction for me. How could she be? She’s not tall and stacked; she’s petite and, well, let’s just say she’s not at all sexy—and I mean that in the best possible way.

  She’s definitely not my type of woman, but she’s definitely my type of PA.

  She has a degree in business from Columbia; she’s a model of efficiency; she’s always the center of calm in what can often be a frazzled world, and she’s completely dedicated to O’Malley Design and Construction.

  She is, well, she’s Bailey. What more could a man want? And—a quick side-note here—I can now pay her what she’s worth to me, which is about f
our times what she earned on Wall Street.

  Bottom line: we’re both happy.

  We reach the door to my office. I open it and step inside.

  Bailey’s right on my heels.

  “The Schecter problem,” she says.

  I sigh. “What is it?”

  “Bob Emanuel ate some bad clams.”

  I look at her. Bob Emanuel is the chief carpenter on a job we’re doing. Four acres. Low slung house. Eight bedrooms. Nine baths. A Zen garden. A pool with a waterfall. A pool house with an attached yoga room. The place is a blend of Asian and contemporary. It’s gonna be spectacular.

  “And?”

  “And, he spent the night puking up his guts.”

  I take off my suit jacket. Bailey takes it from me the way she always does, opens the closet door, whisks the jacket onto a hanger, gives the jacket a quick workover with a brush—did I mention I have a dog? A one hundred and fifty pound mastiff that sheds almost that much fur every day. And then Bailey hangs the jacket in the closet.

  Efficient. Always.

  I sit down at my desk. My mug of coffee, black, two sugars, is positioned just where it always is.

  I take a sip.

  “And I need to know this happy detail because…?”

  “Because he’s the teak guy.”

  “The what?”

  “The teak…”

  Bing bing bing.

  Bailey looks shocked. Actually, I’m shocked, too. It’s her smartphone. The only other time her phone rang while she was with me was two years back, when her mother called to say her dad was in the hospital.

  I look at her.

  No. She doesn’t look shocked. Or worried. Just…I’m not sure. Annoyed? Upset? Something.

  I wave my hand. “Take the call.”

  “It’s a text. And it can wait.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. See what it is. I hope it’s not bad news.”

  She yanks the phone from her pocket. Looks at it. Then she looks at me. She shakes her head.

  “I’ll deal with it later.”