Darak: Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides #1 (Intergalactic Dating Agency): Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides, #1

Revenge is best served sweet with a hot, horned alien

Free-spirited pastry chef Lexi Sutterman has discovered that true love is pie in the sky. The only thing more difficult than finding an Earth man willing to commit is pleasing her wealthy, hypercritical family who view her as a failure. So she’s given up on both, focusing her energy on her new bakery. When her uber-successful little sister manages to nab a well-heeled fiancé, Lexi fights back by joining the Intergalactic Dating Agency. She plans to bring a huge, purple, tentacled alien as her plus-one to the wedding.

Darak of planet Dakon isn’t purple or tentacled—he’s just seven feet of horned alien hotness. To get a woman on his world, a guy has to literally win the lottery. Tired of waiting for the Fates to send him a female, he joins the dating service to meet a nice Earth girl to call his own. He recognizes Lexi as his true mate, but realizes convincing her they’re meant to be together forever and not just for a weekend will be no cakewalk.

When a sweet-tart pastry chef and a horned alien hottie fall in love, everyone might get their just desserts...

Darak (Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides)

Copyright © October 2018 by Cara Bristol

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

eISBN:

978-1-947203-03-7

Editor: Kate Richards

Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe

Proofreader: Celeste Jones

Cover Artist: Croco Designs

Formatting by Wizards in Publishing

Published in the United States of America

Cara Bristol

http://carabristol.com

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Other Titles by Cara Bristol

About the Author

Welcome to the Intergalactic Dating Agency

DARAK: Dakonian Alien Mail-Order Brides

Intergalactic Dating Agency

By Cara Bristol

Chapter One

Lexi

The hand-addressed, gold-embossed, perfumed envelope I’d brought in with the junk mail sat on my kitchen counter and distracted me, despite my best efforts to ignore it. Anything that fancy and expensive couldn’t be good news. I sighed, licked black-cherry frosting off my fingers, and tore open the envelope.

Dr. Blake and Mrs. Caroline Gates Sutterman request the honor of your presence at the marriage ceremony of their daughter, Miss Antoinette Leigh Gates Sutterman, to Phillip Edward Markham IV...

Yep. Bad news. My baby sister was getting married. It wasn’t enough she’d fast-tracked her way to partner of her law firm at the young age of twenty-five, she was sealing the deal by marrying the firm’s founding member, Phillip Edward Markham IV. The possibility she might have slept her way to the top didn’t detract from her accomplishment. In our family, how you achieved success didn’t matter, as long as you did.

Two years ago, my brother had finished his plastic surgery residency and joined Dad’s practice, last year my sister had made partner, and me? I was officially...a failure. I had no titles before my name, no letters after my name, and no prospects of marrying up.

I tossed the envelope aside, and a whole bunch of other stuff fell onto the floor: an RSVP card for the wedding, a separate invitation for the rehearsal dinner, an RSVP card for that, and tissue paper.

I tasted the frosting again, letting the flavors settle on my tongue. Fruity. Sweet with just the right amount of tartness. Perfect. My client would be pleased. I wiped the residual stickiness from my fingers with the tissue paper from the invitation before jotting down the recipe measurements in my tablet, just as the picto-phone app began to play Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries."

With a grimace, I propped the computer on a bowl and pressed accept.

Hello, Mother, I said when her image appeared on the screen.

She would have frowned, if her Botoxed forehead would have allowed it, but she had to settle for transmitting disapproval through a glint in her hazel eyes. Checking an ingrained reaction to make myself more presentable by straightening my posture and ponytail, I deliberately slouched against the counter like a rebellious adolescent. My mother always brought out the worst in me. But then again, she’d always expected the worst of me, so why not give her what she wanted? I waited for her to speak.

Am I interrupting anything important? Her tone indicated she was sure she wasn’t.

I was testing frosting recipes for a new cupcake. Instinctively, I brushed powdered sugar from my shirt in an attempt to clean up. Dammit! Old habits died hard. I didn’t need a therapist to tell me that deep down I really did crave my mother’s approval. To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?

I wanted to let you know you’ll be receiving an invitation soon.

I got it. Toni’s getting married. Congratulations. No doubt Mother considered the engagement her accomplishment. Back when my sister was seeking a law clerk position prior to passing the bar, my mother had arranged for her to meet Phillip through a sorority sister who served on the same charity board as she. Of course, Toni had made the most of the opportunity Mother had provided.

Unlike me. I’d done next to nothing to capitalize on the Gates name.

It’s customary to RSVP.

I only received the invitation this afternoon! Opened it like sixty seconds ago.

I understand. I just wanted to ensure you’ll be there. It will mean a lot to your sister to have you there. It will mean a lot to all of us.

I highly doubted that. But if I wasn’t there, my absence might cause a scandal. I won’t miss Toni’s wedding.

You weren’t at her party at the country club when she made partner.

Yeah, I’d opted out of that one. I hadn’t attended a family gathering yet where by the end of the evening my failings as a daughter and human being weren’t dissected and analyzed. I wasn’t a professional, I hadn’t married well—or at all—and I had no degree, not one from a university anyway. My associate’s in culinary arts from the community college didn’t count as a college education in my mother’s eyes.

I had to work, I fibbed.

You couldn’t take time off to celebrate your sister’s success?

Did she leave work to attend the grand opening of Your Just Desserts?

Your little hobby is hardly the same thing. Mother’s surgically plumped lips formed a dismissive, but attractive, moue. She was one of Dad’s best patients. His surgical expertise had rolled back time, and people often commented to my mother that she and her daughters could be sisters. If they were really sucking up, they’d joke, You must be the youngest.

"It’s not a hobby, Mother. It’s my profession. My pastry shop is a business." You’d think I’d be used to being dissed by now, but it still hurt, so I tended to skip family get-togethers. Once an underachiever, always an underachiever—in their eyes. I’d never been forgiven for my average grades, for backpacking through Europe after high school and coming home with the announcement I’d decided to skip the university, for my inability to hook a monied and/or well-connected husband.

I wasn’t alone in the latter. On Earth, women outnumbered men, so eligible bachelors were few and far between. Men didn’t have to commit to get a woman—so they didn’t. My own brother continued to play the field, and my sister was marrying a man thirty years her senior.

Mother sniffed. Let’s not fight. I called to make sure you can free up your busy schedule. While you’re not one of the attendants in the wedding, Antoinette would like all her family to attend the rehearsal dinner. It’s being catered by Chef Francois Bonnet at our Santa Barbara estate. Figure on staying for the entire weekend.

I hadn’t looked that far ahead, but if I had, I would have planned to ditch the pre-wedding dinner and opt for a drive-by for the main event. I had nothing against my sister. With a five-year age gap, we hadn’t been close as children and never got closer as adults, but she was okay. It wasn’t her fault who her parents were.

I’ll be there. If I had to, I could survive one weekend. My parents’ estate was huge, and I could hide out in the library or the solarium. Maybe duck into the kitchen and help the chef.

Excellent. Antoinette’s wedding could prove beneficial to you—if you make the most of it. Quite a few members from her law firm are on the guest list. I’ll arrange for you to be seated next to a good prospect. Her tone said, don’t mess it up.

I’m not interested in hooking up with an attorney from Toni’s law firm. I have a business to run. That’s my focus right now. When—if—I met a guy, it would be someone of my choosing and on my terms. But right now, I didn’t have space in my life for a relationship. Or the energy. Past relationships hadn’t worked out. Believe it or not, coming from an old-money family did not make dating easier. Men could be gold diggers just like women, and the shortage of men on Earth didn’t exactly give me a big pool to work with.

You’re thirty years old, Alexandra—

"Twenty-nine, Mother." My birthday was four months away. Until the calendar struck September 5, I was still twenty-nine.

It’s time to get serious. I hope you had the foresight to freeze some of your eggs.

Oh, for the love of buttercream icing! Stop. Right there. Stop.

You’re not getting younger, and someday you might want to have children and make me a grandmother.

I did want children, and I hated to admit it, but the odds weren’t looking too good, considering the dearth of eligible bachelors in general and my nonexistent dating life in particular. However, if I had children, it would be to suit myself, not my mother. I’m sure Toni will take care of it before too long. She’s been first in everything else. My mother would deny it with her dying breath, but my sister was her favorite child. Everyone in the family knew it.

Well, she’s only twenty-five, and she’s focused on her career right now.

And I wasn’t?

Plus, Phillip already has three near-grown children from previous relationships.

Relationships—plural? How many times has he been married?

That’s not the point, Alexandra.

But he doesn’t want any more children?

I didn’t say that! Gossip is unbecoming, Alexandra. All I’m saying is you need to think about your future.

Business was booming at Your Just Desserts, my shop had gotten a chamber of commerce award for Best New Business and received high ratings in customer reviews on the ’Net, I had a great group of friends, and I owned my own home. I was doing pretty darn well, if I did say so myself. Why couldn’t she give me credit for what I had accomplished?

My temper rose. Never a good thing. Maybe I have thought about my future. Maybe I applied to the Terra Dakon Goodwill Exchange Program to become an alien’s mail order bride.

That’s not funny.

Who says I’m joking?

Desperate for men, many women signed up to become the mates of an alien race on planet Dakon. The planet was rich in illuvian ore, which could power just about anything, so Earth’s government had worked out a deal to trade females for rocks.

My mother clutched her throat, her lined neck the only feature betraying her true age. Please, tell me you didn’t. Her fingers tangled in the multi-strand pearl necklace she wore to cover the wrinkles. She looked so horrified and concerned, I didn’t have the nerve to continue. We didn’t get along, but I didn’t want to cause her to have a heart attack.

No, I didn’t, I admitted.

"Don’t scare me like that. Despite our differences, you’re my daughter, I love