The F-Word

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.