Dare to Surrender Read Online Free PDF

her boss, the portly Mr. Panos, waddling over to her desk. Straightening, Joy met his dark, accusatory
     stare. “Good morning, Mr. Panos. How are you today?”
    “I’ll be better if you tell me you got that exclusive I’ve been asking for.”
    She shut the drawer. “I’m working on it. I have a meeting with a promising artist tonight.”
    “Good. In this economy we need a big name right now, and something edgy. I’m depending on you, Joy. Your fancy art history
     degree may look pretty on the wall, but if you can’t sell art, you need to start thinking about teaching or something. You
     know what they say, those who can’t
do
teach. And those who can’t teach, teach art history!”
    Joy bit her tongue to keep herself from retorting. Instead she watched Panos waddle away, his backside ticktocking from side
     to side like a huge pendulum. She picked up her pencil and released her anger through some free-flow cussing:
Fuckwad dicknose bucket-of-lard asshole. . .
    There. She drew little hearts and flowers around the words, and when she felt calm again, she took a deep breath, tore up
     the paper, and threw the tattered pieces into the garbage.
    Their receptionist, Andrew Xiao, pushed through the front door and placed a paper cup on her desk. “Nonfat latte.”
    “Thanks. I need this. I just got reamed by Panos. Again.”
    With his Mohawk, black mod boots, and wool sweater, Andrew looked like he’d just stepped out of an Urban Outfitters catalog.
     Sipping his coffee, he rested one skinny, jean-clad hip against Joy’s desk and rolled big brown eyes. “Panos is such a moron,”
     he said in a low voice, and still the words echoed in the empty space.
    Looking around the gallery, she sighed. It was dead. “We had one couple come in earlier, but when they didn’t find any impressionist
     landscapes, they left in a hurry.”
    Coffee cup in hand, Joy started pacing the concrete floor. “The problem is location. We need to be down on the East Side where
     all the other modern galleries and shops are, not on Union Square where the art scene died five years ago.”
    “No shit. Fortunately this place seems to be more of a hobby for the owner than anything else. I doubt he’ll shut us down.”
    Joy paused in front of an enormous abstract. The artist was slowly moving her work to the east galleries but was letting Joy
     keep a couple of pieces, mainly because Joy had begged her to. “We’re losing our artists.”
    “Have you thought of applying anywhere else?” Andrew asked gently.
    “The thought of starting at yet another gallery…” It seemed every time she changed jobs, it was just proof that her art history
     degree had been as useless as her family had told her it would be. There was always museum work, but she loved finding new
     artists, exposing the public to new and exciting cultural finds, seeing their looks of delight after Joy hung a piece on their
     walls. She shook her head. “I just can’t do it, not yet.”
    She looked around the space, at the same art that had been hanging on the walls for months. The place was starting to look
     stale, even to her. “We just need something amazing to set us apart, to make people want to come here.”
    Andrew looked skeptical. “Any ideas?”
    Her gaze went to her desk, and she pictured the stolen artifact inside. She gave Andrew a tiny smile. “You know what they
     say, right?”
    “Every rose has a thorn?”
    “Besides that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “They say sex sells.” And all Joy needed was the sex to sell. And she knew just
     where to find some.
    Joy clenched her shaking hand into a tight fist and rapped three times on Ash’s door.
    She hoped she looked okay. What did one wear to a professional-possibly-could-end-up-in-bondage date?
    She’d changed about ten times before settling on a plain brown knit dress. She’d worn her hair down and attempted to tame
     it with smoothing gel, and she’d even put on some green eye shadow in the hopes