Surrender 01 - Surrender

him intently. He spoke of a woman’s ruin as if he were absently mentioning what he had eaten for lunch the previous day. Did she really want to work for this man?
    But honestly, what choice did she have?
    “I’m aware of what I signed, Mr. Palazzo.” Ari sat up straighter in her chair, the reality of obtaining the job starting to set in. She wasn’t afraid of losing everything because she had nothing to lose. Besides that, she knew how to keep things private. It wasn’t as though she had any girlfriends to gossip with, anyway. She’d always been too focused on school to keep friends. A few had come and gone in her life, but none had lasted the test of time, thinking she was far too boring for their liking.
    Her one attempt at acting like a normal college student…the thought made her shudder. It was the reason she was stuck in an interview for a job she was afraid to know the title of, instead of sitting in class listening to her professor.
    Rafe Palazzo’s searing gaze fixed her to the spot. He’d said that he didn’t go back once he made a decision, but the assessing look in his eyes belied his words. She could see that he was undecided whether he wanted actually to hire her.
    She said a quick prayer that she hadn’t blown this opportunity. Of course, her mother’s words of advice as she’d dropped Ari off at the Stanford dorms for the first time flashed through her mind. Her mom had told her that, if the situation looks too good to be true, then it probably is, and you should run like hell in the other direction. Maybe she should start running, Ari thought.
    “Very well, then, Ms. Harlow. The job position is for a mistress…my mistress, to be exact.”

Chapter Two

    Rafe watched as Arianna’s eyes widened at his words. He knew he should send her on her way, but from the first moment she’d stepped inside his building there was something so mystifying about her that his interest had been instantly piqued .
    She possessed an almost haunting quality in her eyes , but he pushed that thought aside. He couldn’t afford to feel anything more than lust for the women in his life. He respected some of his lovers, but it was only minimal. He didn’t mistrust them — he just wouldn’t let them in.
    All his previous mistresses, he had to say, hadn’t been the brightest bulbs in the tanning bed. They obeyed him, was there when he wanted, and stepped aside. The moment any of them showed the slightest amount of jealousy, he’d ended their arrangement. It was best that way. No other woman would get her hooks into him and his wallet.
    It was obvious that Ari wasn’t one of his typical choices. The first time he’d seen her picture, he’d passed it by, but somehow it was still on his desk after that quick perusal, and something in her pair of fine green eyes called to him, even though she tried to hide them behind thick glasses.
    He needed the women for a specific purpose — that was all. They satisfied his needs, and that was a must, since he was a highly sexual man. They also accompanied him to events where he was expected to have a woman on his arm. He normally couldn’t care less what the world thought about him, but he enjoyed feeling a woman’s soft curves pressing up against his body while lackluster business colleagues hemmed him in.
    The fullness of a woman’s pale breasts peeking out of a dark satin gown, the way her thighs would flash at him with each step she took into a room — the sight of a few strands of her hair as they tumbled down around her shoulders, begging for him to release the knot at the back of her head from its tight confines to allow her thick ma ne to flow forth. The extreme femininity of a woman held his attention during such tedious gatherings. All those things and more were what kept him interested in having a mistress.
    He liked women to be near him; he liked them to do his bidding. He really liked them to satisfy his needs.
    Since his divorce he’d discovered he had far more needs than he ever realized. He hadn’t found a woman who could keep his interest longer than three months ever since the day Sharron had left. He was fine with that.
    When he got bored, he found another willing applicant. The line of women willing to serve him was a mile long — after all, he was Rafe Palazzo, and the world was his oyster, his playground. Both the women he deigned to choose and those he didn’t were hoping — all of them — to have an affair with him turn into something