Dysfunctional Affair Read online

  The Dysfunctional Affair

  Hadena James

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © Hadena James 2013

  All Rights Reserved

  Smashwords Edition

  This book is dedicated to my family: Mom, Dad, Grandpa Raymond, Jason, Michael, Andrew & Nicole.

  I also need to thank Beth, my editor, for her hard work to improve my novels.

  And my cover designer, without whom, the cover would look suspiciously like the title page… maybe a difference in the font, but unlikely.

  Other Books by

  Hadena James:

  The Dysfunctional Chronicles:

  The Dysfunctional Affair (#1)

  The Dysfunctional Valentine (#2)

  The Dysfunctional Honeymoon (#3)

  The Dysfunctional Proposal (#4)

  The Dreams & Reality Series:

  Tortured Dreams (#1)

  Elysium Dreams (#2)

  The Strachan Series:

  Dark Cotillion (#1)

  Dark Illumination (#2)

  Dark Resurrections(#3)

  Prologue

  My life is a disaster of my own making. Well, that isn’t entirely true, I have help from time to time in the disaster area. For example, on any given day, it is possible that a particular someone will try to run me down with a car. It is also possible that the Russian mob will show up at my door. Or worse, that my mother and her sisters will show up on my door.

  Chapter One

  My cell phone rang. I checked the flashing caller ID and flipped open the phone.

  “This is Nadine,” I said quietly.

  “How was Russia?” Zeke Laroche asked.

  “Beautiful, magnificent, breath-taking, amazing,” I paused, “if you give me a second I can probably come up with some more adjectives, but they won’t do it justice.”

  “I get the picture. I need to talk to you.”

  “Uh, today’s not good; I have tons of things to do.” This was the truth; I’d been in the office three days and hadn’t gotten anything done. Even my email had been left unread. I knew I had a case of the vacation blues, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. I’d bawled on the return flight, hating the idea of leaving Russia. Did I mention I’m not much of a crier?

  “I’m sure you do.” The door to my office opened. Zeke stepped inside, squeezing the phone closed. “But Lucy says you haven’t sent her a single email all week, so you obviously aren’t doing them.”

  He checked the ceiling before taking a seat across from my desk. This had become standard operating procedure since a pencil fell down, hitting Anthony in the head.

  “What’s up?” I sighed, resigning myself to the task of talking.

  “You haven’t read your email.”

  “Sure I have.”

  “Liar, if you’d read it, you’d know I was currently homeless.”

  “Oh, yeah, about that,” I groped for something to say. I hadn’t read a single piece of mail and had no idea what he was talking about. “I’m sorry about the fire; did you manage to save anything?”

  “What?” Zeke shook his head, closing his eyes, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “My house didn’t burn down.”

  “Oh, was it flooded?” I folded my hands on the desk. Zeke shook his head again. “Infested by termites, rats, maggots, in-laws, ghosts, poltergeists?” He shook his head at each of these suggestions, the smile forming as my suggestions became more ridiculous.

  “You aren’t even close.”

  “Shit. All right, why are you homeless?”

  “Denise tossed me out about six months ago. I’ve been living in an apartment, but the neighbors are complaining about the hours I keep. I need a place to stay for a while.”

  “Did you ask Sebastian?”

  “Yes, he’s sleeping on Jacob’s couch. His girlfriend tossed him out too.”

  “Oh, well, what can I do?”

  “You have three extra bedrooms. I could rent one from you for a while.”

  “Me?” I frowned harder. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, I mean I am your boss.”

  “Nobody cares; several suggested I contact you about a room.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t hide the surprise.

  “I can’t tell you.” Zeke smiled. “If I tell you, you’ll get pissed off and spend the next three weeks bitching at everyone and giving them shitty assignments.”

  “Well, who said it?”

  “Again I can’t tell you that.”

  “Oh come on, you’re killing me. I have to know what they said. I promise not to get mad. If you don’t tell me, it’s going to drive me crazy.” I have enough curiosity to kill at least fifteen cats. And I really hate it when people allude to things and then don’t tell me what it is.

  “Well, if you sign a contract about leasing me a room for six months, I could probably tell you what they said. But you have to sign the contract first.”

  “That’s blackmail.” I pushed the intercom button.

  Lucy appeared with a small stack of papers. She set them down on the desk, directly in front of me.

  “We typed the contract last week,” Lucy pointed where I was supposed to sign.

  “Fine.” I quickly glanced at it, signed where indicated and passed it to Zeke. He also signed. “Now you have to tell me who said what.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow. “I said that you needed a roommate and babysitter and that if Zeke wanted to stay with you, he’d have to blackmail you into signing the papers. Then during last week’s staff meeting, a couple of people said, ‘stay with Nadine, she has tons of room.’” She smiled as she exited the room.

  Zeke stood up. “Sorry, Nadine, but it’s been a bad week. I had to do something.”

  He also left. I sat there, pissed that I’d been had tricked by the two of them. I tossed a pencil at the ceiling and watched as the eraser hit the tile and fell back down. It landed, lead first, on a stack of folders. The top folder was marked “if you don’t read these soon, I’m going to superglue them to the windows of the Hummer.” I grabbed the folder pretty sure that Lucy was serious about the superglue. That would be impossible to clean up.

  Right on top of the stack was an agenda for a staff meeting. I looked over it. It didn’t sound all that important. I pushed the intercom button again.

  Lucy immediately returned to the room, carrying a clipboard, taking the seat that Zeke had vacated. Her face was pleasant and she seemed amused. She noticed the folder in my hands.

  “No, you may not reschedule the staff meeting,” she said taking a seat.

  I shook my head, “Why not?”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a time when at least fifteen people can attend a meeting? There are some scheduling conflicts that need to be ironed out, some general grievances about current working accommodations, ideas for th
e next office party, ideas for the summer picnic, the current lawsuit, the publicity we’ve been receiving, the stepping up of our own security until the publicity goes away, ideas about a mission statement press release in an attempt to divert attention from our work, and your lieutenants would like a follow up staff meeting regarding safety and your ideas on what to do for the people you’ve helped. I think that about covers it.”

  I scanned the agenda and saw none of those items. “Did we print a fake agenda?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Yes, there was a disagreement about whether you would try to take the day off if you found out what was going to be discussed.”

  I nodded my head; it was a pretty slick trick. I would have to remember it.

  “Huh, well, I’m working at getting over my vacation blues. I have every intention of being there.”

  Lucy smiled, “so you can’t think of an excuse to run away.”

  “Nope, not a damn one,” I smiled back at her. I crumbled the agenda and threw it in the general direction of my recycle bin. “Any attitude suggestions you can give would be helpful.”

  She sat quietly for a minute. “I have one, but you aren’t going to like it,” she said seriously.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Go to the staff meeting, listen to the others bitch, then meet with the guys and listen to them bitch, when everyone’s done bitching, come back into your office, open your damn email and read it. When you’ve finished with everything marked “urgent” in your email, look through the “can’t wait” folders and meet with our prospective clients. Then when you have done those three things, sit back in your chair and stare up at the ceiling and repeat this phrase ten times, ‘I love my job and I will pull my head out of my ass so that no one gets dead, disabled, over scheduled, under scheduled, cranky, suicidal or homicidal, because if that happens, people are going to start quitting. If people start quitting I’m going to have to interview replacements and interviewing is the only real part of this job that I absolutely despise.’” Lucy finished and stood up.

  “Can you send me that in an email marked ‘urgent’, I don’t think I’ll be able to remember the exact phrase.” Lucy nodded her head. I knew that she really would send me the email; just as I knew that I really would do everything she said. I needed the attitude adjustment and interviewing people for positions was the bane of my existence.

  The staff beating was next on the list of things that I had to do. My chair was at the head of the table, which puzzled me. I rarely had any input into the meetings and my presence didn’t seem to do anything but encourage others to attend. Someone had been kind enough to bring in sandwiches.

  “First up, the publicity.” Anthony took a seat, shoving a bit of bread into his mouth. “The police investigation was a smoke screen to make it look like they were doing something. They took less than three hours to decide that we were in the clear. While that’s great, we are still getting some press and we’ve had some people call about missing relatives. The standard line is that the press is disseminating misleading information and that we actually don’t make people disappear at their request. Most people seem willing to believe this, a few are still pushing the issue. I think we need to step up our own security. A few husbands come to mind immediately as people that might become problematic. Besides, our own security, we need to think about Alex’s detective agency as well.”

  The windows in the conference room were tinted, I watched traffic go whizzing past as he talked. The idea that some of my relocationees might not be safe was troubling. Sure there was always a threat of it, what if someone saw and recognized them. But for the most part, it was a small fear. We tended to send people to strange, non-tourist locations where they could blend in.

  “Nadine, are you listening?” Anthony slid a notebook across the table. I stopped it with my hand, never turning from the window. See, I might have the memory of a goldfish, but I had the reflexes of a cat.

  “Yes, I’m listening. We need to step up our own security as well as Alex’s. I disagree about our own, at least in regards to the building. Jacob does an excellent screening job before letting them into the locked parts of the building. He has a nose for that kind of thing.” Finally, I turned, smiling at Jacob. He nodded solemnly. “Outside of the building is another story. I’m wondering how much risk we are really at for a personal attack.”

  “For the moment, I think we’re all pretty safe. The security agents would be less at risk than the office staff.” Sebastian looked at Lucy. “It’s much more convenient to kidnap someone who doesn’t have military training and doesn’t carry around a gun.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll kidnap Jacob.” Lucy giggled.

  “Well, that would work in our favor,” I admitted. “I’d feel sorry for the idiot that does it though.” That was the truth too. Jacob was an ex-marine, not someone you’d want to run across in the middle of the night in a dark alley. However, his wife was no slouch either, she was currently an instructor for one of the martial arts gyms in the area and she had a temper. She would not take kindly to someone trying to kidnap her husband.

  “And for the rest of the non-violent staff?” Lucy was still smiling.

  “Um, I have a suggestion, but everyone is going to look at me like I’m nuts.” I waited a few moments to see if anyone said anything. They didn’t, so I forged ahead. “Well, car pooling for starters. I know we all live from one end of the city to another, but I think we should start looking at who lives near us. I mean, Jacob lives in Overland Park. At least three of the accountants live in Overland Park. Lucy lives in Blue Springs, same as me. Meaning that while it might take a little extra time in the morning, I could swing by and pick Lucy up. Jacob could be responsible for bringing in staff from Overland Park. And so on, until everyone has at least one person riding with them. Inconvenient, yes, but it would minimize collateral fall-out. Also, it’s not going to be permanent. Surely this can’t last more than another month. Secondly, you might want to send a text message to the group if you are going to be unable to answer a call quickly. I mean, if I call Lucy and she doesn’t answer or call me back for thirty minutes. I’m going to get worried. I might call the police as well as start sending out a tracker team. If it turns out she didn’t answer because she was at the OBGYN, I’m going to feel pretty stupid. You don’t have to tell what you’re doing, just that you will be unavailable for a certain length of time. You could then alert us when you’re back. It’s easier to track you if you’ve been missing four hours as opposed to fourteen hours.”

  “That’s going to suck,” Anthony muttered.

  “Yes, it will, I’m taking suggestions if anyone has them.” I waited. “All right, we’ll get the ‘who you live near’ information disseminated as soon as possible. Definitely today, but probably later today. The text messaging doesn’t apply during working hours or after ten p.m. during the week. Unless you decide at midnight to hop a flight to Chicago or something. Also, we should update our family and friends files, new pictures, schedules, etc.”

  “And for Alex’s staff?” Thomas asked. Thomas was a security agent. He’d been with the company about four years.

  “That will be up to Alex. I’ll have her drag her butt over here today so we can discuss it.”

  “Great, moving right along,” Zeke frowned. “The lawsuit.”

  “The lawsuit is a slam dunk. Technically, we have the right to refuse service to anyone we choose.” Trina Byrne said. Trina was the full time lawyer on staff and she was very good at it.

  “Oh yeah, that.” I muttered. “I don’t expect any trouble from that. Trina and I spent several days discussing it before I left for Russia. We both agree it’s a ploy to get them attention in which they are being discriminated against, instead of being accused of discrimination.” A white supremacy group was suing me because I had refused to give protection to a public meeting. Even if they sued me and I lost, I’d still feel I made the right decision.

  “So, we’re ignoring i
t?” Anthony asked.

  “Actually, we are maintaining a policy of non-involvement. Trina meets with their lawyers when they request it, files the paperwork when needed and makes statements to the press saying things like ‘Daniels’ Security’ has the right to refuse service to anyone they believe is participating in criminal activity.” I sighed.

  “And then I get to take the afternoon off so I can go take a shower, because they always make me feel slimy,” Trina was grimacing.

  “Are we accusing them of being a criminal organization?” Sebastian smiled. “Maybe we should be worried about that, not the deranged husbands.”

  “Yep, I’m referring to them as a criminal organization. Furthermore, they can’t be any worse than the mob.” I smiled at the group. “On to happier things, what about the party ideas?”

  Chaos erupted at this. Several people started talking at once. They all stopped. Then started again among giggles. Finally, they started talking one at a time, giving me their ideas.

  Finally, the staff beating was over. I sat at my desk again, phone glued to my ear, waiting for Alex to answer her cell phone.

  “Alex Zeitzev.” She finally answered.

  “Hey, it’s me. The guys are worried about the safety and security of your building and staff while the publicity from the mob relocation is still fresh. They say it’s been rough this past month.”

  “Yeah, my staff has the same concerns. Think I could hire you to have two goons come to my office every day?” She laughed.

  “Nah, I’ll cover the cost of it. After all, I dragged your ass into it. I’ll work out a rotating shift and send them over this afternoon. I want them to escort all your staff to their cars. Since you park in an insecure lot, they will insist on going over the car. You might have your staff plan to add an extra half-hour to their evening. Since you haven’t been linked directly to it, I think they’ll be okay, but I’ve been wrong before. You on the other hand, I’m worried about. Anyone who knows me, knows you. I want you to have a full-time body guard.”