Just Surrender... Read Online Free PDF

course,” he answered absently, searching out Edie at the bar.
    “She’s a peach.”
    “I noticed.”
    “You like her?” she asked, looking at him with naked curiosity.
    Tyler protested quickly. Apparently too quickly because Anita smiled with blatant sympathy. “It’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad. All the guys love Edie.”
    “Really?” he asked, noting where Edie was, leaning against the long, silver bar.
    Loving Edie was bad. She was too chipper, too needy, had a well-shaped nose for trouble… and a great ass, he thought, leering at her skin-tight jeans.
    Hastily he swallowed air.
    “See the bartender?” Anita pointed toward the hulking creature with a chain tattooed around his neck, and Tyler dragged his bleary eyes away from Edie.
    “I see him.”
    “They had a thing a few years ago, but she dumped him.”
    “Who’d she fix him up with?”
    Anita laughed, chucking him on the arm. “You’re brighter than most.”
    “Thanks. So, who was the next victim?” he asked, even though he already knew. Anita was watching the chain-painted bruiser with sappy eyes. After only a few hours in the city, Tyler was now convinced that the stereotype of the hardened New York heart was flat-out wrong.
    “The next victim was me.” She sighed, confirming his hypothesis.
    Saps. All of them.
    A happy patron walked past and curved a hand over Anita’s naked thigh, and she only smiled. The bartender didn’t blink.
    Tyler shook his head, surprised. “That’s very uh, open of both of you that he doesn’t get jealous.”
    “I’m putting him through acting school. It eases the pain.”
    “Yes, I get that.” His eyes again found the bar, drawn to Edie immediately. In a naked sea of female perfection, the bartender was ogling the one female who was completely clothed. And Dr. Tyler Hart completely understood.
    As if she sensed his weakness, Edie turned, met his eyes and smiled from across the room.
    “She’s not into relationships,” warned Anita.
    “Me, neither.” Tyler watched as Edie came toward him, carrying four shot glasses. Just then the music volume increased, and a gravel-throated singer moaned about the Highway to Hell.
    And tonight Dr. Tyler Hart was riding her for all he was worth.



3
    E DIE WASN’T SURE WHY she’d brought him to the diner. She didn’t usually reveal this part of her life to anyone. Maybe it was the Edie-induced grease stains on his hands, maybe it was the Edie-induced mud stains that had permanently ruined his pristine white shirt. Maybe, possibly, it was the arrogance in his melancholy eyes. She knew that kind of arrogance. She had lived her entire life with it, but her father had never looked that lonely. Not once.
    It was after three in the morning, the darkest part of the night. Except in Manhattan, and especially at her diner. Here it was never dark, never night. Ira’s had bright yellow walls, four-hundred-watt fluorescent lights and a waitstaff with dreams that didn’t involve the food service industry.
    After Edie ordered for them, she continued on her current mission. Trying to take the loneliness out of his eyes.
    “You know, there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to someone, forming a connection, even if it’s temporary,” she told him. Tonight she’d introduced him to Paradise, Passion, Lulu and Honey and it disappointed her that he’d turned them all down.
    “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” he insisted.
    “Well, you didn’t find anybody at the club,” she argued, pointing out the obvious discrepancy between what he said, and what he didn’t do.
    “Do I look like the stripper type?” he protested, and she rolled her eyes, surprised at his cluelessness.
    “Every man is the stripper type. You’ve just got it buried deeper than most. All that emotional repression takes time to undo.”
    His brows drew together. “I’m not repressed.”
    “You’re an emotional brick, but don’t feel bad. It comes from being loved by a woman