Chapter 71: A Spark?
The bill settled, Liam pushed back from the table and stood, and Mrs. Harriet rose beside him.
He gestured toward the exit and fell into step — half a step behind, the natural geometry of the space requiring it. He told himself that was the reason.
Of course it wasn’t, Liam wanted to appreciate the woman in front of him as there was a strong chance that there wouldn’t be another opportunity to look at her in this exact dress. Although his system had flagged her as a potential target, it didn’t mean it was a guaranteed success as Liam still had to work his magic.
The restaurant floor wasn’t long but it was enough.
She moved with the unhurried authority of someone who had never needed to perform confidence because it had never been separate from her. The hips found their own rhythm without consultation and Liam’s eyes dropped briefly before he pulled them back up. He was only human. She had no idea she was doing it, which made it considerably worse.
He kept his pace steady and his expression neutral.
The cool night air met them at the door, the breeze was chilly.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost sat at the kerb in a deep midnight finish — understated in the way only the genuinely expensive could afford. The driver stood at the rear door with his hands folded, suited, patient.
Liam walked her to it and quietly recalculated what he thought he knew about her.
He had factored in wealth. Managing partner, Harlan name, top firm. He had assumed they were comfortable or at least, at the bottom of the upper-class but this was beyond comfortable by every stretch of the imagination. This was the kind of money that didn’t need to announce itself, which made it louder than anything that did.
A neglected woman at this level was a different calculation entirely.
Her husband was abroad more often than not. The marriage maintained by structure rather than desire. And standing beside her now, close enough to catch the trail of her perfume in the night air, Liam understood instinctively that whatever her domestic life looked like behind closed doors, it had been running on empty for a long time.
The system had seen it before he had which was why it initially made her a target. There had to be a baseline of attraction to say the least so he had something to work with.
"I’m glad we could reach a conclusion," Mrs. Harriet said, turning to face him. The driver held his position at a practiced distance.
"So am I." Liam held her gaze. "I think this works well for both of us."
"I think so too." She looked at him with the same unblinking attention that had made Darren sit perfectly still across a dinner table for two hours. Up close, outside, in open air, it landed differently. She was never performing composure. She simply had it, the way some people have height.
"I’ll be in touch about dinner," she said. "I know exactly the right place."
"I don’t doubt it."
The faintest trace of something crossed her expression — not amusement exactly. The look of a woman who had taken a measurement and found it satisfactory without planning to share the result.
She turned toward the car.
The driver opened the door. She stepped in without adjustment or hesitation, the movement clean and complete, and the door closed behind her with the engineered silence of something that cost more than most people’s mortgages.
The window lowered two inches.
"Goodnight, Liam."
"Goodnight, Mrs. Harriet."
The window rose. The Ghost pulled away without hurry, easing into the street with the momentum of something that had never needed to prove a point.
Liam stood on the pavement and watched it disappear around the corner.
Then —
[Ding!]
[Transaction Recorded]
[Target: Harriet Harlan (High-Tier MILF)] [Investment: $340 (Dinner + sustained intellectual engagement + strategic emotional investment)]
[Base Value: $1,133]
[300% Beginner Bonus Applied]
[Rebate Received: $4,532]
Liam looked at the notification and then back at the empty street where the Ghost had been.
The number was respectable for a dinner that hadn’t involved anything beyond conversation and a signed document. High-tier multipliers were already doing work that mid-tier couldn’t match at the same input level. If the investment deepened—
He put that thought away for now.
The tension that had been running through him since she walked into the restaurant was still there — not released, just relocated. She was not a woman who bent toward softness or accessibility. Nothing about her invited comfort. She was the kind of woman who made you earn proximity, who looked at you like you were interesting rather than impressive, and who walked away from a kerb in a Rolls-Royce without looking back.
That combination was doing something to his nervous system that he hadn’t fully prepared for as he had never encountered such a woman before.
He exhaled and reached for his phone.
Three messages from Sophia. He opened the thread.
[Sophia: Mateo keeps asking when you’re coming back.]
Ten minutes later:
[Sophia: He says he doesn’t care. He absolutely does.]
Then:
[Sophia: Are you free tonight?]
Liam knew this was her attempt at seeing him but using her brother as an excuse, a gesture he found cute as there was absolutely no need telling him this information otherwise.
Liam typed back.
[Liam: I’m free now. Coming by if that works.]
The reply landed fast.
[Sophia: He’s going to pretend he doesn’t care.]
"Maybe that is because you’re the one who wants to see me,"
[Liam: Let him.] Liam sent back.
He walked to his car with his hands in his pockets. The Ghost was long gone. Mrs. Harriet was somewhere in the back of that car being driven through Seattle’s nighttime streets, and Liam was here in a car park with tension in his shoulders and nowhere obvious to put it.
Mateo and a controller he had no idea how to use would have to do.
He started the engine and pulled out into the street.