The Alien and the CEO: Slakerian Empire, #3

By Cheryl Sterling

Vivi Soria’s anger couldn’t grow any larger. A foreign investment firm, Slakerian, Inc., has convinced the board of directors to sell her on-line matchmaking service, Hunting4TrueLove, against her wishes. She’s out of a job. Then she discovers possible fraudulent activity in the deal. Whether she’s owner or not, she sets out to find the truth.

Commander Jakes Echabarne of The Baldain, a class four vessel of the Slakerian fleet, is on his last mission. He’s slated to administer Slakeria’s repopulation directive on its newest colony. Vivi’s matchmaking program is needed to link Slakerians and recruited humans. A looming deadline and an unexpected glitch in forces him to kidnap her to debug the software.

Vivi demands to be taken home, but she’s already in deep space. Can she convince Jakes to arrange a return voyage to Earth?

Jakes knows the odds of her request. Can he convince Vivi to join him at the new colony?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cheryl Sterling
• Release date: Oct 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536500202

Cheryl Sterling

Cheryl Sterling is an American author of several paranormal and contemporary romance novels and short stories. Cheryl is a co-founder and past president of Grand Rapids Region Writers Group in Grand Rapids, MI. She has conducted several workshops that focused on the writing craft and co-chaired their first “I’ve Always Wanted to Write a Book” regional conference. Her passion is learning and improving her craft, but mostly, she is a teacher. Cheryl currently lives in Phoenix with her husband.

Book preview

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Alien and the CEO

––––––––

VIVIAN SORIA NEVER THOUGHT OF SUICIDE. Drinking to the bottom of a bottle, yes, but walking into the comforting waters of the Pacific Ocean? No.

Thirty steps to the elevator, another thirty to the street, two blocks to Waikiki Beach, and maybe one thousand feet into the water until I can’t tread anymore.

She shut down the morbid calculation but couldn’t stop noticing the coincidence of the total—one thousand, three hundred and sixty steps.

A hollow, bitter sound rose from the back of her throat. The number equaled the days since the launch of her online matchmaking service, www.hunting4truelove.net, no longer in her control.

Vivi spun her chair away from the view of tempting blue waters. She contemplated her office for the last time and noted little of value, monetary or sentimental, worth tossing into a cardboard box. The three-and-a-half year venture had produced nothing.

Nothing except her share of the $5M IPO when the board of directors took the company public a year earlier. Nothing except the proceeds when they’d sold Hunting4TrueLove, Inc. to a foreign investor, ousting her in the process.

Cash is cold comfort. What was she to do?

Vivi glanced at her sexy Christian Louboutin pumps. They’d cost more than her first apartment’s rent. Such a shame to wear them into the Pacific.

A quick rap on the door pulled her from thoughts of designer shoes and useless, designed suicide.

Alan-Terry Baxter, her ex-assistant, burst into the room. Alan-Terry burst into everything in life. Vivi wondered if he’d bounce his way to the unemployment line as none of her employees had made the cut to the new regime.

Boss, I’ve found the source of the up-tick in subscribers. He laid a printout onto the desk and stepped back with pride.

The use of the word up-tick irritated