Alpha Male Incorporated: Take Control (3 page)

“I hope you’re right about this, and I can finally find out who this guy is. I would love to stay longer, but I really need to hit the road.”

Grabbing her purse off the back of her chair, Raya dug inside to pay for her half of their meal. A few times Sahara had tried paying, but she wouldn’t allow it. She never took handouts before Sahara’s fame and wouldn’t start doing it now.

“Well, I think one big thing keeps that from being entirely true,” she said, placing the money down on the table. “I’m not a vampire and never will be one. I’ll call you later. I need to go somewhere before I head back to the office.”

Getting up from her chair, Raya slid her purse on her shoulder and waited while Sahara got up from her seat. She came around the table and gave her a hug. She returned it warmly, missing how much they used to laugh over their meals now everything was so serious.

“Don’t you dare make it another six weeks before we can have lunch again,” Sahara complained, taking a step back. “I hate the fact you are consumed by work now. I wish you would take a break and do something just for you. Can I talk you into taking a mini vacation for a while? I would love for you to go on tour with me. We could have a lot of fun together, just like the old days.”

God, Sahara’s suggestion sounds so good but I can’t do it
.

“I can’t go on tour with you. I need to stay here for the business. Numbers have always been my passion I haven’t wanted to do anything else since I was a teenager. I would be heartbroken to lose something I wanted for so damn long.”

“Honey, will you please stop worrying so much? Everything is going to turn out fine for you. I’m willing to bet if you open your eyes you’ll find your perfect guy right in your face,” Sahara said.

Raya bit her lip, trying to keep her thoughts to herself. Since getting married, Sahara was still living in the honeymoon stage. She believed everyone wanted to wear a long white dress and take the walk down the aisle, but Raya wasn’t one of those forever females.

“How about I focus on one thing at a time?” she suggested. “After I take care of the business side of my life then I can look over the personal side of it.”

Sahara’s perfectly arched eyebrows slanted down into a frown. “Are you trying to brush me off?” she asked. “I can’t believe it. What happened to our sisterly connection? We both know I’m usually right about these things. Don’t give up on love.”

“No, of course not,” she instantly denied, not wanting to let Sahara figure out she had given up on love a long time ago. “I just don’t want to get your hopes up that my one true love is out there waiting for me.”

“You know that I’ve the ability to read your mind, so I can tell when you’re lying to me.” Linking her arm through hers, Sahara led her past the crowded tables as customers took her friend’s picture with their cell phones as they headed for the front door.

Sometimes, she secretly wondered did all of the attention make Sahara regret becoming a famous singer. Did she ever not want to be Coco the artist and just be Sahara Irizarry, the woman?

“Please tell me you aren’t harassing Raya again. I’ve warned you more than once about moving too fast with her. She isn’t like Sahara or Sabrina. You aren’t going to force her to be with you. The way you’re handling her is too rough. Try a little more tenderness and understanding.”

Damn it!
Why was his cousin still at the office?

Thorsten Irizzary flung his cell phone down next to him. He hoped Jax would still be out of the office when he sent the text to Raya. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture about taking it “slow” with her. She was his mate…his
Unique
woman, not his cousin’s. Jax should butt out of his personal business.

Why couldn’t he have Raya here with him right now? He shouldn’t have to go through the whole romance stage like his two cousins did to get their women. He had a right to win over Raya on his free time, any way that he chose to do it. She wouldn’t be as difficult as Jax believed to get under his control. Jax might not realize it, but he was different from him and Zander. He had his own way of doing things. He couldn’t help that he moved at a faster pace than his cousins. They shouldn’t have allowed their mates to have such an enormous amount of control over them all of the time.

“Fine, I won’t tell you who I was calling because I don’t want to lie to you,” he snapped. “Besides, all you have to do is read my mind to find out the truth.”

Sliding forward on the leather couch, he reached for the file that contained information about the August hedge fund, then stood. He made his way back over to his desk, knowing he had to stay on top of things with her.

“Thorsten, of course I can read your thoughts, but I won’t do it,” Jax admitted, coming further into his room. “We’re family. I want us to have an open and honest relationship, communicating with each other. How does it feel to finally have Raya this close to you after all these years?”

“It’s more amazing than I ever thought it could be. I wanted to grab her the first time I saw her walking away from Zander’s office with your wife. I know she’ll be thrilled to have me as her mate. I’m the hottest catch in town, in both the human and vampire world.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Jax demanded, his green eyes flashing at him with contempt. “Do you know what you’re telling me?”

“Yeah, I know and I’ll say it again,” Thorsten answered, sitting down behind his desk. “Raya should be glad that she was chosen to be with me. We both know there are a lot of women out here, both vampire and mortal, that wouldn’t think twice about having me in their lives forever. My money alone is a huge draw for the opposite sex.”

His cousin’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides in anger. “You’re supposed to feel the ultimate reward at finding the woman born to be with you for eternity. Yet, you’re sitting there all cocky and smug acting like you don’t have any problems in the world.

“In case you’ve forgotten, Raya can’t stand you and doesn’t want you anywhere near her since she woke up and saw you sitting beside her hospital bed,” Jax reminded him. “How do you expect me to behave? You’re going to have my wife’s best friend falling in love with you without any problem? What planet are you living on?”

Slamming the file down on the mahogany desk, Thorsten jumped up out of his seat. “I’m going to win her over with my charisma instead of waiting for her to see what is right in front of her eyes. I’m going to prove to you and Zander how good I am when it comes to getting my woman. No matter how much animosity Raya might feel towards me, I’ll get her as my mate with a snap of my fingers. I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘no’.”

Chuckling, Jax shook his head. “Oh, I think you’re going to learn the meaning of the word ‘no’, along with a whole lot of other things while dealing with Ms. August. She’s one of a kind and she’s all yours, cousin.”

Thorsten glared at Jax as he retook his seat. “I’m ready for her. An Irizarry vampire never backs down once he’s found his mate. Raya will be mine forever and no one else. I’ll make sure of it.”

He hoped Jax heard the conviction in his voice because he wasn’t playing around about this whatsoever. Raya was born with a special birthmark, making her his forever. The sooner she understood how things worked the better it would before the both of them. They could move on with their future together.

Coming closer to his desk, Jax placed his hands on top and leaned inches from his face. “Raya is a fighter. I know this from experience. She isn’t going to let you boss her around for your own power play. A
Unique
woman is vastly different from any other female you have wasted your time on. So, let me make something very clear to you. Don’t hurt Raya, because if you do Sahara will feel her best friend’s pain which means I’ll get upset. You don’t want me to forget we’re related. Do we understand each other?”

The urge to hit his cousin clawed at him, but Thorsten kept his cool and remained seated. Jax might be hundreds of years older than him, but he didn’t have any right to interfere with how he went after Raya. He wasn’t going to get into it with him today. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

“I hear you loud and clear,” he answered. “Now, will you kindly get the hell out of my office? I’d like to get some work done on these financial reports. I can’t do it with you standing guard over me flinging unnecessary advice in my direction.”

Jax smiled at him, but it didn’t quite reach his green eyes. “I’ll go, but don’t come to me wanting guidance when your plans to run over Raya explode in your face.” Turning on his heel, Jax stormed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

For a spilt second, Thorsten became concerned about his ideas on winning over Raya, but shoved the doubts away. Once he got any misgivings in his mind, it would take hours for them to disappear. His plans to make his mate a part of his world were brilliant, and he was more than confident they’d work for him.

Standing up, he flashed back over to the couch and picked up his cell phone. He was going to make dinner reservations for him and Raya for tonight at
Venus
. She would be so excited about his plans, she wouldn’t be able to turn him down.

Unlike the misgivings his family might have, he didn’t doubt he’d win Raya’s acceptance. Jax constantly thought he knew what was best, but this time he was going to show everyone he was right. Raya might be tougher than he first thought but he was centuries older, which gave him the upper hand at winning her over and getting his way in the end.

“Baby Sis, why don’t you just give up and honor the contracts I signed? Having all that extra free time will give you something else to do besides put so much of your energy into this sinkhole.”

Tossing her glasses on the circular table, Raya pinched the bridge of her nose, trying not to lose her temper with her unwelcome guest. She hadn’t taken another break from working since coming back from her lunch with Sahara. Now here came her brother trying to give her advice. He had never been one to advise her in the past, so why was he doing it now?

He was the one who tossed their family’s name and dream to the side for a stupid stripper and a few poker chips. He only wanted a huge check to cash, then he would move on to the next item on his agenda, which was probably getting back with Gabby…Pebbles. Hell, whatever her name was this week. It changed constantly, so she wasn’t able to keep up with it.

“I’m not going to sign over our father’s hard work to a man I have never laid eyes on. He’s hiding behind texts and emails to get what he wants. How could you ask me to do it?” she questioned, picking up her glasses and sliding them back on her face. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

“Raya, I’m not trying to hurt you.” Cedric sighed. “You know how much I love you and what you did for me. However, Dad gave me the company with the controlling shares to do as I please because he knew you couldn’t do what needed to be done.

“We need to jump off this disaster before it takes us both down and we won’t have a way out. You deserve better than spending hours here for
nothing
. I had a way to get us out of this problem and give it to someone who wanted to deal with it. You found a way to stop the final paperwork from going through. Why?”

“I can’t believe you were so quick to give up on our family,” she flung back. “Don’t you have any kind of loyalty?”

“Of course, I have loyalty to our family, but I’m not going to work myself into the ground for a hedge fund that is losing money daily. We barely have any clients left to keep it going. Just listen to me and let it go,” her brother told her. “I know it will hurt at first, but you will get over it.”

“I can bring it back to the way it used to be, all I need is more time,” Raya insisted. “Why won’t anyone give me the time to do it? No one is encouraging me to live out my dreams.”

Cedric shook his head. “People don’t have the capital they used to ten years ago. I think you’re wasting your time. We had this business in our family for over twenty years. We can’t do anything else with it, so it’s a good idea to sell it to him. It’s not too late for us to cut our losses. Let me call him and smooth things over. I know I can make him offer us another deal. Something we both can agree to this time. I can make sure it ends us a win-win for both of us.”

Raya sighed with disgust. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not selling the business? Yes, things are bad for people right now, but everything will pick back up again and when it does I’ll be here waiting. Will you stop tossing this stranger in my face, because I will never sign any paperwork he has for us? Let it go.”

“He wasn’t a stranger to me,” Cedric corrected. “I wasn’t trying to destroy our family’s legacy, but we both know what it took from Dad to get the business up and running. All those nights he wasn’t at home with us, but here at the office working away so we both could have a good life.

“I’m not going to lie. I hated him for not being there as much as he could for us. Maybe that’s why the idea of wearing a suit and tie every day isn’t for me. I’d rather have a job I love going to every day, and if it involves wearing jeans and t-shirt…man. I can do it with a smile on my face.”

“Is that why you stopped working toward your MBA and went to work for that stupid film studio? You studied hard for so many years and it ended up for nothing. I still can’t believe you did it and never once looked back. I thought after you got out of rehab you would go back to college and finish the courses to get your MBA. Cedric, you were
so
close.”

Coming completely into the room, Cedric took a seat across from her at the table. Reaching across it, he placed his hand on top of hers while his big hazel eyes stared into hers.

“Everyone in the family knew I got interested in making films when I won the internship during senior year. I couldn’t wait to go there every day after football practice, and I knew I would major in film when I got accepted to college.

“It’s all I ever wanted to do, but when Dad got sick I changed my major to business and finance so I could help out at hedge fund until he got better. He got worse and I got dragged in deeper and deeper until I hated the thought of coming to work.