Chapter Five
Lexi
Darak’s eyes widened as we stepped onto white Carrara marble in a soaring foyer larger than many people’s living rooms. A chandelier dangling from the third-story ceiling dripped hundreds of Baccarat crystals in a dazzling display to highlight an alabaster water nymph—in case you happened to miss the double-life-sized sculpture situated smack in the middle of the entry. Beyond the fountain, a snow-white sofa with carved rosewood arms and legs anchored a seating area of several high-backed white silk jacquard chairs and an assortment of antique occasional tables. The foyer always reminded me of the formal sitting rooms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where visitors cooled their heels while the butler checked to see if the master or mistress of the house would receive them.
Except I doubted anyone had sat in the foyer of Chez Gates. Just because the water nymph was naked didn’t mean you dared to plant your ass on my mother’s white sofa.
On the vestibule’s left wall, A Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer stared at Monet’s Water Lilies splashing color on the Venetian plaster on the opposite side. There were other paintings by living up-and-comers whom my art patroness mother chose to favor.
“Seen enough yet?” I whispered to Darak. “There’s still time to sneak out.” I’d grown up in this house—and others like it—and it still floored me when I came “home.”
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to see the rest.”
Darn. I was afraid of that. “Well, let’s go say hi to Mom. Let her know we’re here.”
I forced myself to walk normally and not tiptoe as we crossed the marble and turned left down the corridor to arrive at command central. Thick walls and a mahogany door provided natural soundproofing to mute voices to an indistinct hum. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the wood.
“Enter!” Mother’s voice filtered through.
I poked my head inside.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said from her desk. Sunlight beamed through wide windows spying over the front drive to cast a deceptive angelic halo around her coiffed burnished head.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” I replied.
“Well, of course, it’s good to see you, Alexandra. I thought you were Lola coming to tell me the pool has been fixed.”
Lola was the house manager. When you lived in a sixty-five thousand square foot mansion on thirty acres of manicured grounds, you needed housekeepers, chefs, gardeners, pool boys, and personnel with other related duties to maintain it all, plus an intermediary to manage them. Lola Gregorian, god help her, was that person.
“What’s wrong with the pool?”
“An electrical issue. The pump, filtration system, heater—they all stopped working. After the wedding, we’re going to convert from electricity to illuvian ore, but for now, we have to get it operational.”
“Are you expecting wedding guests to swim?”
“That’s not the point.” Her sharp tone hinted she might be frowning, but her Botoxed forehead didn’t allow it. “Why are you still hovering in the hall? Come in.” She motioned impatiently and rose to her feet, revealing her rail-thin figure attired in a white, crease-free linen sheath. On most people, linen wrinkled if they thought about sitting down. However, even Caroline Gates Sutterman’s clothing toed the line. Or maybe the dress, like my mother, had had plastic surgery. It was accessorized with a silver statement necklace twisted into an artful knot. The good jewelry, the platinum and precious stones, didn’t make an appearance until the cocktail hour. Surprisingly, my mother liked her martinis dirty.
I hadn’t realized I was still hiding behind the door. Or maybe I was waiting for my knees to stop shaking. Darak stood out of sight next to me. Back when I got the half-baked brainstorm to bring an alien home to meet Mom, I had envisioned the big reveal being a lot more fun.
“Actually, I’m not alone. I brought someone I’d like you to meet.” I glanced at Darak then pushed the door wide, and we stepped inside. “Mother, I’d like you to meet Darak, my…date for the weekend.”
In the process of coming to greet me, my mother faltered mid-step, her gaze going straight to his horns. A myriad of emotions flitted across her face—shock, dismay, anger—before a bland equanimity superimposed itself.
“Your plus-one. Antoinette mentioned you might be bringing someone. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Darak.” She slid into a handshake as if the glitch had never occurred. My mother belonged to the high society frenemy set that air-kissed so they could assess the best place to plant the knife.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Darak replied.
“Really, Alexandra.” False laughter tinkled. “You do love your little surprises.” She strolled back to her desk and accessed the communication system. “Lola?”
“Maintenance is still working on it, Mrs. Sutterman. They got the lights to work, but they’re still figuring out the rest.”
“That’s not why I’m calling. Please have housekeeping prepare a room for Alexandra’s guest. The green one, I think.”
It was a nice space, inconveniently located at the opposite end of the house from my bedroom. Good play, Mother. Or it would have been if Darak and I had had that kind of relationship. Then again…I recalled with a flutter of my stomach the sizzling kisses we’d shared in the barracks.
“Of course,” Lola replied. “Will Giles be bringing up the luggage?”
My mother glanced at me, and I nodded.
“Yes.”
“I’ll tell him where to put them.”
“Excellent. Thank you. Keep me posted on the pool situation.” The call disconnected.
She eyed Darak’s horns before adopting another fake smile. “Please make yourself at home during your stay.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Are Toni and Phillip here yet?” I asked.
“Toni arrived on Tuesday. Phillip was delayed by work. He’s expected this evening.” My mother slipped behind her desk to rest her hand on the polished surface. Dad was handsome, but short, while Mother was tall. I’d inherited neither her height, nor her model figure or deportment. She’d given all the good genes to my sister.
“Well, great. I’ll show Darak to his room.” I inched toward the door, eager to escape now that I’d fulfilled the obligatory check-in.
“Lola or Giles can take him there.” Her gaze shifted to the hot seats positioned in front of her desk.
Oh, no, no. Time to vamoose. If you were ever invited to sit in one of those stiff-backed wooden guest chairs, trust me, you didn’t want to.
“No need to bother them. They’re very busy with everything else going on. Plus, I should pop in and see Toni. I’ll talk to you later, Mother.” I grabbed Darak’s arm, hustled him from the room, and shut the door. Bypassing the circular staircase winding up to the third floor, I hurried to the getaway elevator.
His eyes widened as it lifted off.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in an elevator,” I said.
“I haven’t,” he said.
“Well, if you need to go up or down, you push these buttons.” Remembering he couldn’t read, I pointed to the number two on the panel. “This is the floor we were on.” The elevator stopped and opened. I pointed to number four. “This is the floor where the bedrooms are located. We skipped over the middle floor—I’ll give you a tour later.”
“What’s this floor?” He pointed to number one.
“That’s the underground where the garages are, where the van will be if you need to go to it.” Chez Gates had four levels. During my explanation, the elevator doors had closed. I pressed the outward-pointing arrow button to reopen them. “The elevator opens and closes automatically, but you can use these buttons if you need to.”
We exited onto a wide corridor connecting the north and south wings. “I’ll show you where my bedroom is then I’ll take you to yours,” I explained.
My mother and father’s suite was located at the end of the south wing. Clustered together about midway down the hall were my room, my sister’s, and my brother’s. “This is where I’ll be sleeping.” I pushed the door open to show him.
My suitcase rested beside a four-poster bed covered in a textured, solid ecru duvet. A mountain of coordinating ruffled and lace pillows in the same bland tones were artfully arranged against the carved headboard. A rose pattern glistened in the cream-on-cream silk draperies framing the French doors opening to a balcony overlooking the pool. Oriental carpets in subdued tan shades covered the hardwood floor.
“It’s…very…white,” he said.
“Yeah.” Technically, cream and ecru, but that was a quibble. Decorated by a designer per my mother’s instructions, the room oozed luxury, but lacked color—like my life at home had.
I shut the door on old memories and beckoned. “Come on. Your room is better.”
I paused outside my sister’s door. “Let me see if Toni is here. I’ll introduce you.” I knocked, but no one answered, so we moved on. I hadn’t expected her to be there. With the wedding two days away, she was probably pow-wowing with the wedding coordinator over the setup or something.
We crossed the intersecting passage to the north wing. I was grinning by the time we reached the end.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked.
“You’ll see. Go on in.” I motioned.
He opened his door. “Obah…this is much better!” His expression turned guilty. “I can’t take this. You should have the best room. We should trade.”
“Absolutely, not,” I said, shaking my head. “My mother wanted you to have this.”
He moved around the room, touching the forest-green nubby duvet, the wood-hued velvet draperies corded by heavy ropes, the dark-brown leather sofa with the racing-green arms, the overstuffed chenille easy chairs. Not only the farthest from mine, the bedroom was my mother’s least favorite space among all her homes. Originally, it had been intended as a possible master suite until the designer screwed up.
Darak tested a chair, plopping down and stretching out his feet on the matching ottoman, at home and comfortable. My stomach did its flip-flop thing as I imagined us living together in our own place. Cooking breakfast on Sunday morning, taking long walks, humping like bunnies. Could a relationship between a smoking-hot alien and a plus-sized workaholic Earth girl with mommy issues have a chance?
“Why is everything else so white?” His question yanked me back to reality.
“Because my mother likes it. This room should have been ‘white’ also, but when she told the decorator ‘cream,’ he thought she said ‘green.’” Heads probably rolled. She and my father were traveling out of the country at the time and didn’t find out until they got home. “She was going to redo it, but for once, my father expressed a preference and put his foot down.”
I set my purse on a table and pulled out my phone. “Let me text Toni.” I’m here. Brought a friend. What else was there to say? Wanna meet my alien? I pressed send.
“The bathroom is through there.” I pointed to the door behind me. “And the closets and dressing rooms.” There were two, his and hers.
My phone chirped. Saw the van. Can U meet? Toni wrote.
K. Where R U?
Gazebo. Wrapping up wedding stuff. Meet you in the grand salon in 30?
K.
Do I get to meet your plus-1?
I’ll bring him.
I looked at Darak. “Care to meet my sister next?”
“Of course I would. I want to meet everyone and see everything associated with your life.” He paused, and with a cautious inflection, asked, “Is she like your mother?”
In his hesitation, his quiet, simple comment, I realized my mother’s polished, poised, polite persona didn’t fool him. Should I apologize now or later?
My sister resembled our mother in her willowy body and her coppery brown hair and had inherited the Gates-Sutterman strive-for-success gene. Reportedly a killer in the courtroom, Toni in private came across as likable and personable, not scary. Of course, she was only twenty-five, whereas my mother had had decades to perfect her intimidation skills.
“I’ll let you decide,” I said. “We’re meeting her in half an hour.” I gestured to the suitcase Giles had placed next to the bed. “Before we go, we should hang up your suit and your good shirts so they don’t wrinkle.” We’d need to dash back to my room so I could shake out my dress. I wished I’d thought of it while we were there.
If it creased, I could have one of the maids steam it or press it for me, but despite growing up in this environment, having staff wait on me always had made me uncomfortable. As a kid, I’d rebelled by making my own bed every day—which, every day, my mother would have the maid redo so it was perfect. Yes, I’d failed even at bed-making. My shoulders slumped.
Darak got to his feet. Instead of reaching for his luggage, he drew me into his strong, warm arms.
“What are you doing?” I held myself rigid as conflicting emotions rioted. How could I feel turned on and want to curl against him and weep?
His heart thumped beneath my ear, and his exotic scent soaked through his shirt to tease and soothe. “You looked like you needed a hug,” he said.
He was nice, but wrong. I could appreciate his closeness, of course. It felt good—fantastic—to be pressed against his hard body, but I didn’t need anything. I was fine, doing well. Splendid. Perfect.
“You’re sweet. I don’t know why you would think that. I’m all righ—” I choked as the dam cracked. My failures, the vain hopes, the disappointments, unmet expectations, the secret longings gushed out in a humiliating geyser. Darak tightened his embrace to hold me closer, rested his cheek on my head, and rocked me. I wrapped my arms around his waist, pressed my face to his chest, and cried with body-shuddering, open-ish-mouth sobs.
He shuffled us to the easy chair, sank into it, and pulled me onto his lap, whereupon I curled up into a ball and continued to blubber. He stroked my hair and murmured soothing words.
Finally, the crying petered out, leaving me with hiccupping shudders and acute embarrassment.
If you think slobbering hysterically on a hot guy you’re starting to like is bad, let me tell you it’s worse when the waterworks switch off and you realize where you are and what you’ve done. And still I continued to sit on his lap and snuggle into him. “I’m so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Then, tell me. What are you sorry about?” His face moved against my head in a caressing manner. Strands of my hair clung to his stubble. Did he just sniff?
“For losing control and being a basket case, for getting your shirt all wet, for having unresolved issues, for subjecting you to my mother, and—are you smelling me?” I lifted my head.
A telltale red stained his cheekbones. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it. You smell good to me,” he muttered.
He was so darn sweet, and cute, and sexy, and appealing. Warmth seeped through my chest, spreading outward. I shifted on his lap and kissed his cheek, my lips lingering for longer than a peck. When I drew back, our eyes met. Mine had to be red-rimmed and puffy, but in his gaze, I saw longing and admiration. I leaned in and, this time, brushed his lips.
And then we were kissing in earnest, mouths fusing, tongues twining, hands exploring. He caressed my arms and back, massaging lightly then eased around to the front to cover a breast. Pleasure contracted at my center.
I cupped his jaw as we kissed. Desire and curiosity proved too tempting to resist, and I slid my hand up to fondle one of his horns. It pulsed against my fingers as if blood coursed through it. Darak growled, low and sexual, and my body hummed in response.
I yanked my hand away and buried my face against his throat. Whew!
He tipped my chin and searched my gaze. He must have seen what he needed because relief glinted in his dark eyes, and then his lips curved with his crooked, appealing grin. He tucked my head against his shoulder. We held each other, saying nothing, and although I was far from perfect, the moment was.
* * * *
By the time we hung up our clothes and I dabbed makeup over the ravages of my crying jag, we were a tad late in meeting my sister. Perched on a gilded Victorian conversation loveseat, casually elegant in lavender capris, a silver and lavender floral sleeveless blouse, and silver ballet slippers, she bowed her head over her phone.
When she looked up, though, her face appeared pinched, stressed. Planning the wedding of the century could do that to you. Or maybe being back in this house was what did it. I recalled my little breakdown.
She jumped up as Darak and I entered the parlor I had not-so-fondly nicknamed the grand salon because it was too grand for children. As kids, my siblings and I had been banned from the room.
“Lexi!” She grabbed me in a hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too! I can’t believe my bratty little sister is getting married,” I teased affectionately.
“I was never bratty.”
“No, you weren’t,” I agreed. “You were a very well-behaved child, always eager to please.”
“To my detriment,” she muttered under her breath. Then she pulled away and extended her hand to Darak. “You must be Lexi’s friend. I’m Antoinette, but please, call me Toni.”
“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Darak, Lexi’s mate.”
“Mate?” Toni’s eyebrows shot up as if the wording surprised her more than the appearance of a seven-foot alien with horns.
I should have advised him against using that reference. But, how should I introduce him? We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to call him a boyfriend. The heat of our kisses had blown friend out of the water. Date or escort sounded too impersonal for the connection we’d forged through our shared harrowing experiences. We’d been mugged together, and he’d met my mother!
“Darak is from planet Dakon,” I said as if that explained everything.
“Have you been seeing each other long? How did you meet?”
“Er, not long. The Intergalactic Dating Agency matched us. How else would you meet an alien?”
A moment of stunned silence followed my answer, but then Toni laughed. My poised and proper sister doubled over with peals of laughter, hugging her stomach as her shoulders shook. When she stood up, she wiped tear tracks from her face. “And how did Mother respond?”
“About the way you would expect.” My lips twitched.
Toni turned serious. “I’m sorry.” She glanced between Darak and me, directing her apology at us both.
“It’s all right,” I said and meant it. The meltdown had altered my perspective. I slipped my arm through Darak’s, and he smiled at me, his horns twitching. Could he do that at will? Some people could wiggle their ears; maybe he could move his horns. We sat thigh to thigh on a button-back Victorian lounge. Our hands came together naturally, and our fingers entwined.
Toni sat opposite us. “You look so happy together.”
“I am happy,” he said. “Lexi is everything I ever wanted.”
“It’s new, but yeah.” My stomach fluttered with awareness of the change between us. I needed to process how I felt and what it might mean before I started talking about it with my sister. “Hey, you’re the big news. Tell me about the wedding. Everything all set?”
She gave a quiet mock scream and tugged at her hair. “As long as I can avoid morphing into Bridezilla, everything will be fine. I feel like the Incredible Hulk. There’s this force inside me threatening to explode.”
I laughed. I’d delivered enough wedding cakes and met enough brides to get an idea of the stress.
“I wish you could have done my wedding cake, but Mother told me how booked up you are—”
“Whoa, whoa—what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m not complaining. I understand.”
“You never asked me to do your cake.”
“Because I knew how busy you were.”
No busier than a litigator planning her wedding! “Toni, I am busy, but I’m not that busy, and I would have baked my little sister’s wedding cake if I had to do it at one o’clock in the morning.”
“Mother said—”
“She told me you were having the cake done professionally.” Once that had rankled, but now? It was almost funny now.
Darak squeezed my hand. His eyes were sympathetic, but heated. His gaze devoured me like I was his favorite cupcake, and calories be damned. Maybe I owed my mother a thank you. If she hadn’t dissed me, I wouldn’t have signed up at the Intergalactic Dating Agency, and Darak wouldn’t have come into my life. He was supposed to have been my revenge alien; instead, he’d become something else. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure. He caused my heart to pound, my pulse to race, my knees to wobble—and the internal chaos to settle.
“Mother strikes again.” Toni shook her head. “I’m sorry, Lexi.”
“It’s all right.” I grinned. “Maybe I’ll bake a cake for your birthday. Or your first anniversary.”
“Death by Chocolate?”
“You know about Death by Chocolate?”
“My office has ordered your cupcakes. I stopped by your bakery once, but you weren’t there.”
“You should have told me!” It stunned me she’d been supporting Your Just Desserts, and I hadn’t known.
“Well, you were kind of avoiding the family at the time.” She tilted her head. “The whole wedding-cake thing with Mother may have been less about you and more about her exerting control over the event. She tried to insinuate herself into the planning, but I put my foot down. This is my wedding, and I want it to be what I want and not what she wants. I’ve allowed her to dictate too much of my life as it is.”
Sitting there not speaking, just listening, Darak was getting an earful. With Dakon’s small civilization fighting for survival, his people had learned to cooperate, work together for the common good. From what he’d shared about his family, his parents had doted on him. I hadn’t expected this heart-to-heart with my sister when I’d brought him to meet her.
Better he find out now what he’s getting into.
Still, it was possible to share too much too soon.
Nothing I could do about it now. I was a hot mess. At least I didn’t have twelve cats.
“I’m learning from you,” Toni said.
“From me? How?”
“I’ve always admired you. You were my big sister, and you always did what you wanted. You didn’t let Mother rule your life. You still don’t. You started your own business. You got yourself a hot guy. You’ve blazed your own trail.”
“At a cost,” I mumbled, stunned again. My professional, successful sister admired me?
“There’s a cost to conformity, too,” she said.
I’d never attempted to conform because from the beginning it had been obvious I never would. I’d always been an outsider in my own family, falling way short of expectations. So “blazing my own trail” had been kind of the default option. What if I had met expectations? Would I have chosen a different path? “You seem to have a great life, though,” I said.
“But is it my life?”
“Then live the life you want. You’re only twenty-five—you can change.”
“Can I?”
“Of course you can! You’ve already started—you told Mother to butt out of your wedding, didn’t you? You really set fire to the trail. If you don’t like practicing law, quit. Do something else. My trust fund has been spent, but you still have yours. You don’t need to work for a while. Decide what you want and go for it.”
Toni glanced at her chirping phone. “My wedding planner,” she said.
“Go ahead, take it.” I motioned.
She tapped, read the text, and sighed. “A flower emergency. She needs me to go over the options.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Nope.” She stood up. “You already did. You gave me a lot to think about.” Toni hugged me and whispered in my ear, “I’m so happy you met Darak. He’s a hottie, and he’s obviously smitten with you.”
My sister left, and I reeled in the wake of the paradigm shift.
“Your sister is not like your mother,” Darak said.
“No. No, she’s not.” I linked my arm through his. Toni was right; he was a hottie, but I’d already figured that out. “How about that tour now?”