Alpha Male Incorporated: Take Control by Marie Rochelle Page B

her problems with Thorsten. Usually, she was more self-aware than this, but as usual seeing him had her less than a hundred percent.
    Enough! Raya impatiently pulled her drifting thoughts together. This was her day and she was going to get back to it without any more thoughts of the Irizarry men clouding her head. With a new spring to her step, she moved forward to get caught back up into the fun of being at the farmers market.

Chapter Twelve
    Struggling with the bags in her hand, Raya fought to get the key into the front door. Finally succeeding, she pushed it open with her hip and then dropped the bags inside before taking the key out and slipping it back into her purse.
    She kicked the door closed with her shoes and grabbed all of her bags off the floor before hurrying back to her bedroom. Since she couldn’t get herself together at the farmers market, she’d decided to treat herself to her favorite store at the mall, Body Central . She’d hit the jackpot and tried not to think about how she spent way too much money. However, what woman wouldn’t love a sale that allowed her to get ten dollars off a purchase of thirty dollars or more?
    Raya placed the five bags down on the bed and pulled out the knee-length gray dress she bought at the very last minute. The salesgirl was about to hang it up when she asked to see it. Thank God she knew her size well enough to know it would be a perfect fit without trying it on.
    Walking away from the bed, she went over to her standing floor-length mirror by the wall. She held it against her body and smiled at her reflection. Damn. She was going to look good when she wore this. Light gray always looked good against her skin tone. Something about it made her black hair stand out even more when she wore it down instead of pulled back into a bun.
    She continued looking at her reflection, trying to decide when she was going to wear her new outfit for the very first time. It was way past time for her to get back out there on the dating scene. Sahara had already fallen in love and gotten married. Not even a few months after, Sabrina started dating Zander and she was happily married to him with a baby on the way.
    What was up with her? Why wasn’t she at least seeing a hot guy a couple nights a week? Was she being too picky? Her mother had advised her on more than one occasion she shouldn’t find so many faults in the guys who asked her out on dates, but she couldn’t help it.
    She wanted to feel comfortable around a man who was just himself, someone who didn’t try to impress her with a built-up image of himself. Nothing about a self-serving guy made her want to date him.
    Taking one final glance in the mirror, Raya walked away and went back over to the bags of clothes on her bed. Sitting down, she laid the dress across the mattress and thought about something she had been avoiding for a while.
    The impromptu shopping trip she had taken today allowed her stressful mind some relief for a few wonderful hours, but it was time for her to face the facts. For almost over a year, she tried pretending it wasn’t right in front of her face but it was.
    No matter how hard she worked at it, she wasn’t able to save her family business. Nothing she was doing was made any difference whatsoever. So, why couldn’t she admit it to anyone but herself yet?
    Was she that scared of failure?
    Cedric and her father could be right about selling the hedge fund while there was still a chance of making some money. The idea of someone else owning what her father built from the ground up hurt her. She promised him that she was better than her big brother and could do what he couldn’t, but she didn’t do it.
    This only left one thing for her to figure out. What in the hell was she going to do with the rest of her life if it wasn’t put towards saving the family name?
    Raya couldn’t stop herself from pondering if, had she not followed the straight and narrow, her father would have devoted the time he did to