Chapter 42: $100,000 or Nothing.
The notification was still up when he read it a second time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[BONUS QUEST GENERATED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A billionaire’s harem belongs at his side, close enough for his hands to rest on their buttocks.
Objective: Make physical contact with the New Investment Target.
Select contact point:
[Breasts] / [Ass]
Target: Dina Hathaway
Time Limit: 10 Minutes ⏳
Reward: Target Registration Opportunity + $100,000
Failure: Quest forfeited. ❌
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The second read didn’t help.
He knew three things about Dina: her name, her face, and that Jenna had introduced them about three minutes ago. Apparently, that was enough for the system to bribe him to spank her.
He almost dismissed it. Then he looked at the reward again.
A hundred thousand dollars. For touching a woman’s ass. The system really knew how to create problems.
He read the reward one more time.
This is insane. I’m gonna get bounced by that Hulk for this.
"What’s with the look?" Dina said, snapping him back to reality. "Important message?"
"Important...." He paused. "No. No. I’m good."
He wasn’t.
She tilted her head. "You look like someone who just got bad news."
"Closer to complicated news," he said.
She didn’t push. He reached for a glass instead and let his attention move toward the entrance. He spotted Jason still by the wall. The man’s eyes found Adrian almost immediately.
Yeah. I’m definitely getting bounced.
The system didn’t respond. Apparently, a hundred thousand dollars came with no customer support.
"Dina," she said, offering Jenna a polite smile.
Jenna returned it, then glanced at Adrian. "And you two know each other how?"
"Oh. Um." Dina smiled at Adrian. "We’re just drinking buddies."
"Yeah." Adrian faked a smile. "Just drinking buddies."
That was going to change in a few minutes. Still worth it, though.
"Drinking buddy?" Jenna’s eyes moved between them. "Isn’t that kinda like a friend?"
Dina nodded easily. "That’s what I said."
Jenna stared at Adrian.
"What?" Adrian lifted his glass. "What’d I do?"
"You made a friend, dumbass. Usually you just make bad relationship decisions."
He opened his mouth, then stopped. After the reveal tonight that wasn’t entirely a lie.
"Adrian. What’s all the hold up?" Jenna cut in, sliding back toward the booth. Her eyes moved from Adrian to Dina, and her eyebrows lifted. "Wait. Who’s she?"
"You two should come sit with us," Jenna said.
Adrian opened his mouth, mostly to figure out what the least disastrous answer would be.
"Sure," Dina said first. "The more, the merrier. Right?"
Jenna smiled. "Exactly."
Dina smiled and followed Jenna toward the booth.
Fuck. Now they’re together.
They came back to the booth together. Jenna sat down first, Adrian a step behind, already calculating how to complete the mission without getting punched.
Dina moved toward the seat beside him and started to sit.
Adrian slid his hand onto the cushion beside him, positioning it where he could make the contact quickly if he got the chance.
"Hey." Jenna stopped on the other side of the table, looking at him. "You’re seriously sitting over there?"
"Hm? Is something wrong with the seat?" Dina glanced at the seat. "These are new jeans. I’m not risking spilling anything on them."
"There’s nothing wrong with the seat." He kept his face even, and turned back to Jenna. "I’m sitting here."
"Yeah. And I’m asking why."
Dina looked between them. "Are you sure you guys aren’t a couple?"
Neither responded.
"I like this booth," he said.
Dina paused halfway into sitting and looked at the booth. Adrian pulled his hand back before she was close enough to notice where it had been.
Scratch that... ’Liked’ the booth.
"Then you’ll like it one seat over. Closer to your baby." Jenna pointed beside him. "Move."
She really knew how to use the nicest words.
Adrian stayed where he was. Jenna stared at him until the silence became inconvenient. Then she sighed, walked around the table, and sat down next to him. Dina settled in on his right a moment later.
Adrian withdrew his hand beneath the cushion. The timer was still running, and now Jenna was sitting directly beside him.
Fuck.
Jenna raised her shot. Dina lifted hers. Adrian picked his up and drank it before they’d made eye contact for a toast.
Jenna set her glass down and looked at him.
"Look at you." Jenna glanced at his empty shot glass, then winked at Dina. "One drink in and he’s already trying to impress me."
He didn’t bother to look. "I was thirsty."
"You weren’t thirsty a second ago."
Mostly because I just got the stupidest objective I’ve ever been given.
"I’m unpredictable," he said.
Dina laughed, quick and unguarded.
The conversation moved easily after that, mostly because both ladies were matching talkative. He found himself answering more than he’d intended to, his mind still conniving for a success route.
But when Jenna started talking about one of the bar’s dishes, he immediately saw his opening.
"Order one for me too," he said.
Jenna went still. She turned to look at him, her eyes already narrowing. "What?"
"Those nuggets you just mentioned." He replied. "You mind helping me order?"
"Never took you to be a nugget guy."
"Never took you to be this much of a talkative."
Jenna glanced at Dina, then back at Adrian. Something in her expression said she wasn’t buying it, but she stood anyway.
Before she cleared the booth, she pointed at the remaining shots.
"Don’t finish those without me."
Adrian lifted his glass.
"Wouldn’t dream of it."
He watched her until she was far enough in that she wasn’t coming back in the next thirty seconds. Then he looked at Dina.
Dina was already looking at him.
"Hm. You’re staring," Adrian said.
"I know." She smiled.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Mm. Let’s just say." She paused. "You look different from the last time I saw you," she said.
"Good different?"
She reached over and briefly touched his bicep. "Bigger, maybe. I don’t mean that in the weird way."
Adrian didn’t move. She was touching him. Jenna was at the bar. He glanced at the timer. Then at Dina. "So it’s a good thing, then?"
She smiled.
Adrian let his hand drop toward his target. He’d already decided the breast option was the quicker one. Now he finally had an opening.
Adrian’s hand moved. Then he caught the sound of Jenna approaching from behind him and pulled back before she reached the booth. She slid in beside him and dropped a folded napkin on the table.
"Food’ll be about twenty minutes, give or take." She looked at the gap between him and Dina. Then at him. Then at Dina. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing," Adrian said.
Dina gave him a small smile that made it very clear she wasn’t helping.
Jenna looked at both of them and didn’t push. She reached for her drink. Adrian did the same.
Two chances missed. Adrian exhaled. C’mon man.
It wasn’t Jenna. It wasn’t Dina. It was him. Every time the opening appeared, he thought about it until the opening disappeared.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He checked it under the table.
Time remaining: 00:43
Below it sat the number he’d been chasing the entire time.
$100,000.
He was out of time.
He looked at Dina. He’d spent most of the last ten minutes looking for a way to do this without making it weird.
Waiting had already cost him two chances. Forty-three seconds wasn’t going to create a third.
He turned toward her.
She caught it immediately and stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes found his. "What?"
He hesitated for one second. Then he forced himself to move.
"Sorry."
She frowned. "Sorry for what..."
His hand moved towards her breasts. He meant to do it quickly, before either of them had time to react.
Dina’s hand moved faster. Her fingers closed around his wrist before his fingers could reach her.
Adrian looked down at her hand. Then up at her face. Shit.
She was staring at him with the specific confusion of someone trying to locate an explanation they couldn’t find.
For a second, neither of them moved.
"What were you trying to do?"
Adrian stared at her hand, his brain scrambling for any reasonable explanation. There was none.
Then, his phone buzzed on the table. His eyes caught a glimpse of it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BONUS QUEST FAILED.
Target Registration Opportunity Lost.
Reward: $100,000 has been Forfeited.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Well...Fuck.