The Player's Club: Finn (9 page)

Dismissing him, she walked past him and opened the door.

“I’m doing my damned job.”

6

DIANA WAS SANDY EYED and irritable. She’d spent the morning staring at the same accounting spreadsheet and gotten absolutely nowhere with it.

Finn, get out of my head!

She’d won; she had the leverage she needed to get Finn to quit the Club. She’d done the job. Goody for her, but working here, for Thorn Macalister, you didn’t get the morning off for doing your job. You got more work.

Right now, that work was checking out why numbers in the general ledger were coming up screwy. She’d already flagged the comptroller to track a bunch of mystery codes, meanwhile some accountant or other was supposed to be looking at it—she had his name on her desk, Victor something. She started sifting through notes, then gave up after five fruitless minutes of searching. Her normally pristine desktop had been ravaged by a paper tornado.

It only went to show how crazy she was, if she’d let things get this disorganized.

Instinctively, she struggled to tidy, acknowledging the headache that was brewing. The three ibuprofen she’d taken with breakfast had done nothing, probably thanks to the pot-of-coffee chaser she’d downed in an attempt to make herself more alert.

Finn probably talked to his father this morning.

“Not now,” she said aloud, stacking papers into neat piles.

He probably told him he’s giving up everything. Probably going to let the private investigators shadow him. Might even give up his passport.

“What Finn Macalister does is none of my business.” She put away the folders in her file drawer with a sharp slam.

He probably hates you.

Just for a second, she rested her face in her hands. It shouldn’t bother her. She didn’t even know him.

It shouldn’t tear her up like this.

“Diana? You okay?”

She quickly looked up, seeing her assistant, Penny, standing in her doorway, staring at her with concern. “Headache,” Diana replied. “Too many numbers.”

Penny smiled sympathetically. “Well, you’ll get a break now. Big boss wants to see you, in the main conference room.”

“Thorn wants me?” Diana asked. “Why? I emailed my report to him this morning.” The Finn Report, she thought, stifling a sigh.

“Maybe he wants to congratulate you on a job well done?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Diana stood up, straightening her suit. She wasn’t convinced, though. It wasn’t Thorn’s style. Curious, she left her office.

The main conference room, next to the executive office that Thorn used, was called the marble room. An immense marble-topped table dominated the room. Imported from Italy, the conference table was like a sepulchre, huge and stately and vaguely creepy. The room was the ultimate home turf for Thorn—the place where he routinely pulled deals together and crushed opponents into dust. He didn’t have any big meetings that she was aware of, she thought nervously. Or was she so off this morning, she’d somehow forgotten one?

She took a bracing breath, then pushed the mahogany doors open. “Thorn, you asked to see…”

She stopped immediately.

Finn was there, incongruous in jeans and T-shirt, standing next to his father, who was wearing a three-thousand-dollar dark gray suit. Despite the disparity in their attire, they wore the same look of determination.

Oh, crap.

She didn’t want to stare at Finn, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

He didn’t seem to hate her, was her first thought. He wasn’t quite smiling at her, either, but there was a gleam of mischievous devilry in his blue eyes.

Her body went unaccountably warm before her brain noted with irritation,
He’s up to something.

She didn’t know why that cheered her up, but it did.

“First of all, I have to congratulate you, Diana. In less than one week, you managed to get Finn here to finally face his reckless ways.” Thorn’s laughter boomed as if he were some kind of mythical god of war. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how you managed that?”

She saw Finn’s surprise, a hint of gratitude, and she simply shook her head. “Thorn, as you’ve always told me, the important thing is getting the right results.”

“True, true.” Another thunderclap of laughter. “I guess they don’t call you the Hammer for nothing!”

Diana squirmed.

“Well, Finn here wasn’t too happy to do so, but he’s come to me with a proposition, of sorts, and I have to say I’m intrigued.” Thorn put an arm around Finn’s shoulders, squeezed. “Actually, I’m surprised—he’s got some of his old man’s skills when it comes to negotiation. I knew you had it in you, son.”

“Must be in the blood.” Finn’s responding smile was grim.

Diana felt her blood pressure spiking, her head throbbing like the bass line at a strip club. What
the hell
was going on here? “I see. So you’ve changed your mind, Thorn, about the Club and Finn’s participation in it?” She was proud the question sounded so mild, even though she felt like strangling her mercurial boss.

“Absolutely not.” Thorn released Finn. “I still think the Club is dangerous.” There was a hint of steel in his voice that told her that while he might seem calm and jovial, whatever was going on between him and his son was definitely a deal of some sort. Which explained the marble room.

Diana’s nerves tightened as she waited for the other shoe to drop.

“You may think the Club’s dangerous.” Finn’s voice was a clear echo of his father’s, carrying the same steely, unflinching strength. “But my father is at least going to let me argue my case, and prove that it isn’t what everyone thinks it is.”

Finn’s intensity tugged at her, made her twitch. The frisson of excitement that danced over her nerve endings was a mere chemical reaction, she insisted. Could she help it if the combination of sexy rogue and determined purpose made an impact on her?

“So,” she said, clearing her throat and her thoughts, “he’s got a grace period?”

“Exactly. He’s got one month to prove to me that this Club of his is as worthwhile and life-affirming an organization as he’s making it out to be,” Thorn explained.

“Great. Glad you got that straightened out.”
God save me from boys and their bets,
she thought. She would never get the week back that she’d basically wasted, nor would she be able to get her weird reaction to Finn out of her head.
Damn.
“If you’ll excuse me, there’s some work that I—”

“I told him that he couldn’t come up with some nonsense presentation,” Thorn said, holding up a hand to effectively cut off her exit. “I know him. He’d invent some sugarcoated theatrical extravaganza that made it appear they rescue orphaned puppies from burning buildings. No, no, this will be firsthand, personal evidence.”

Her mouth dropped open.
“You’re joining the Player’s Club?”

What would the stockholders do if they found out their stalwart president and CEO was running with the bulls? Spray painting murals? There would be a riot. The stock price would plummet. No wonder he wanted her in here; she had to either come up with a way around this idiocy or figure out a strategy to keep it absolutely secret.

Her mind was already racing with ideas when his laughter broke through her frantic plans. “That’s ridiculous, Diana. There’s no way I’d do any of that craziness.”

She let out a long exhalation of relief.

“
You
are.”

She blinked. “I’m…what?”

“You’re going to go through all these high jinks Finn thinks are so life changing in a positive direction. You’ll do the stupid challenges, get hazed, whatever.”

“Why me?” she yelped, stunned.

“Because I trust your judgment,” Thorn said quietly. “I trust you implicitly, and believe me, I don’t say that to many people.”

“Try
any
people,” Finn tacked on, earning him a frown.

“A whole month?” Diana repeated. “No, sir. Respectfully—absolutely not.”

Thorn glowered. “This isn’t a request, Diana.”

She winced, but pressed forward. “You’ve hired me to be legal counsel,” she said. “You hired me to iron out problems. I fix things.”

“Well, now I’m telling you to fix my son.”

“Ouch.” Finn shifted his weight, covering his crotch. “That sounds painful.”

She ignored him. “You told me to get Finn out of the Club. I did that. I can still do that. So why are you bothering with this charade?”

Thorn looked pissed, but he didn’t look away. “Finn, why don’t you tell her why I’m making this deal?”

Finn cleared his throat, all joking fleeing his expression. “If you go through with this, and you don’t understand why this is so important to me…if you don’t see that it’s actually beneficial to me, rather than destructive—” he swallowed visibly “—then I’ll not only quit the Club, I’ll go to every board meeting. I’ll take a job here at Macalister Enterprises.”

Aha. Diana felt her stomach drop. Finn knew his father, and he’d used the one lure Thorn would be completely unable to resist. Fantastic.

Finn stepped toward her, and her stomach jittered. “But you’ve got to play fair, Diana. I’m trusting you implicitly, and Dad’s promised, too, that you’ll be completely impartial.”

She closed her eyes.

“So what do you say now, Diana?” Thorn asked.

What could I say?
“Yes, of course.”

“Great.” When she opened her eyes, Finn was smiling at her, his eyes shining, his whole body almost pulsing with vitality. She thought he was about to hug her. No. He looked like he wanted to do more than hug her.

“First meeting’s tonight,” Finn announced. “And Dad said you get to focus on just this all month. I’ll pick you up.” He winked at her, then nodded to his father and left the conference room, whistling.

She waited until the door closed before she spoke to Thorn. “He trusts you.”

The “smiling dad” face vanished, and Thorn’s expression turned sharp. “Don’t you?”

“I know you.”

If a stalking lion chuckled, it would sound like Thorn’s responding laugh. “One month,” he said. “No matter what, Diana, end this thing. You know what the answer is. Just make him believe you’re going through the motions.”

“What if I think the Club really is life changing in a positive direction?” she heard herself ask.

“Diana,” he said, and his voice was low, dangerous. “You know better.”

This was too important to Thorn for her to screw it up. If she let his son slip away…

She felt nausea hit her.

Oh, yes. She knew better.

FINN FELT A LITTLE NERVOUS. It was early for a Player’s meeting—only eleven o’clock at night. They’d chosen an airplane hangar in Alameda for the location, and only twenty or so of the members could show up since so many had been hanging out the night prior.

Maybe it was silly, Finn considered. It had started out as both a joke and a source of adventure—meeting at ungodly hours, ostensibly to hype the meetings, and just to have that secret-society feel. But they had a growing group and a set routine now: the new recruits, the challenges, talking about what adventures people wanted to go on and when. Maybe it was time to find something more permanent: a set time, a set place. He blinked. In all nine years—God,
nine
years already—that they’d been running the Club, he’d never really thought in terms of any “permanence” for what they were doing.

“Could we wrap this up quick?” his friend Scott drawled. “Some of us poor suckers have boring day jobs, Finn. We need sleep!”

Finn struggled not to make a face.
If I screw this up, I’m going to be one of those poor suckers.

“Where are we?” Diana asked in an exasperated voice. She was leaning against him, which he liked; she was pissed as hell at him, which he was getting used to.