The Player's Club: Lincoln by Cathy Yardley Read Free Book Online Page A

just cute.
    “Finally…” He paused, mulling it over. “I’d paint something on the ugly-ass building across from my office. Every day, I work for hours staring at that burned-out ghetto eyesore. If I were going to die, I would definitely do something about that.”
    Now the crowd laughed. Even Juliana was grinning, and he smiled at her shyly.
    “Okay, Jules. What about you?” Finn’s eyes were lit with expectation. “What does the woman who’s done everything do with only one month to live?”
    Just get it over with, she thought with a sigh, and rubbed at her temples. “One month to live, generous friends…dying. Hmm.” What the hell did they want to hear? If she gave throwaway answers, then Lincoln would probably try to kick her out; the crowd was already not fond of her, and she was feeling the pressure to impress.
    Suddenly, it felt very much like the many trust-fund-kid parties she’d been to, or even back in boarding school…back when she was struggling to prove herself, to impress the kids around her. All without a clue as to what was expected of her.
    The surfacing memory made her a tiny bit hostile. “Oh, you know me, Finn,” she drawled acidly. “I’d probably make a videotape of all my life’s lessons, how to live the Juliana Mayfield way.”
    Finn cracked a grin, but she could tell that she had answered incorrectly. The group’s somber response backed that theory. She sighed.
    Emotional, she thought, remembering Terrence’s girlfriend thing. “I’d tell my family how much they mean to me,” she said, and felt at least a slight thaw from the crowd. Of course, they were assuming she meant something deep and emotional, so at least that played. The truth was, she doubted her parents would care what she felt about them, as long as she wasn’t tacky and public about it.
    Lincoln had removed his hand from her shoulder, though. When she looked at him, she saw him frowning, almost scowling.
    What was he so unhappy about? She scowled back at him. What was she supposed to say?
    “One last thing,” Finn persisted. “What’s the third thing you would do?”
    She scrolled through fantasies, daydreams. What hadn’t she done? She thought of her favorite movies. Romantic comedies, mostly: funny, feisty women pulling off capers.
    Then it hit her.
    “You know what?” she said finally. “I’d steal something.”
     
     
    LINCOLN CHOKED.
    “Steal something?” Finn repeated, with a broad, stunned grin.
    “Yeah.” Lincoln couldn’t see Juliana’s face since he was standing behind her chair, but he could hear the smirk in her voice. “I always loved those heist movies, you know. The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair, Ocean’s Eleven. It seems like it’d be such a rush.” She laughed. “And I wouldn’t be worried about jail time if I screwed up.”
    “So you would break into somewhere and steal something,” Finn clarified.
    The crowd was electrified. Lincoln felt a sick knot in the pit of his stomach.
    I knew this was going to be a bad idea, he thought. I just knew she was going to be trouble.
    He closed his eyes and for a split second remembered the taste of her as she straddled him on her couch. He quickly thought of some equations and baseball scores. He was standing in front of the whole club—the last thing he wanted them to notice was him standing behind the gorgeous Juliana with a hard-on the size of Texas. They were probably already thinking he’d lost his mind, being her mentor.
    Hell, he thought he’d lost his mind.
    He glared at Finn. Finn simply shrugged back, mischief still dancing in his eyes.
    Damn it. He knew Finn had been getting restless, but this was unconscionable!
    “So, is that it with the questions?” Juliana murmured over her shoulder.
    “Unfortunately,” Lincoln answered.
    “On to the challenges portion of the program.” Finn was positively gleeful. “Which is actually really easy—you have one month to do all three things you’ve just