17. Agreement

He should've cancelled his appointment with Sara, Kaiba realized. Well, really, he shouldn't have slept with her in the first place, considering she not only was someone he'd already agreed to work with again, but also a colleague and a guest of Yugi Mutou, of all people. What's done was done, however, and given that, the best thing to do would be to put as much distance between himself and her as possible. And yet, he didn't cancel the appointment, and as much as he'd like to tell himself it was because he didn't want to get another unsolicited visit from Téa Gardner or even because she'd had a point about the terms of the Ceremonial Battle being honored, the truth was much, much worse.

He wanted to see Sara again.

This was bad.

He was Seto Kaiba, dammit. He did not form personal attachments, not to anyone except Mokuba. Certainly not to women he'd slept with. It was just sex after all. Fantastic sex, maybe. Wild, sizzling, magnificent sex, even. But still just sex. He didn't know the woman, didn't want to know the woman, had no interest in anyone who not only was a student of his most hated period of history, but Yugi Mutou's peer.

Then why didn't he just cancel the appointment? And why was it that every time he tried to get some work done—Kaiba Corp business, his actual job—he could only think about her and the look on her face when he'd summoned Blue-Eyes?

Actually, he knew the answer to that, and that was yet another reason this was all so very bad. She reminded him of Kisara, the woman from that ancient Egyptian vision, the one who had died protecting the pharaoh's guardian that shared his name and his face. The one who'd given up her soul to become the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

It almost looked like Blue-Eyes just didn't want to attack you. She must like you.

Kaiba ground the heels of his hand into his eyes in frustration. Sara Drake was not someone from the ancient past, dammit! She was a twenty-two year old Egyptology student from England who happened to have white hair, blue eyes, and a thing for dragons. It was no reason to sleep with her, and no reason for him to give her a second thought.

Except he had to give her a second thought, because he hadn't canceled the damn appointment with her. He leaned back in his chair, grimacing. Well, that couldn't be helped now, either; it was almost four and she'd be here any minute. So instead of dwelling on what he should or shouldn't have done, it was time to move onto the only thing that mattered: the future. And all the future required of him was to not repeat the mistakes of last night. Keep everything strictly professional.

His phone rang, his internal line to his secretary, and he tensed. No doubt she was here. He took a breath and picked up the phone. "Yes, Marla?"

"Ms. Sara Drake is here for your four o'clock appointment."

"Yes, tell her I'll be with her in a moment." He put the phone back in its cradle and cleared off his desk, putting aside the useless reports. He then went to the small conference table in the corner of the large office and laid out the papyrus scrolls and a few leather-bound journals Roland had brought down from his penthouse, the ones they hadn't gone through yet from the box Téa and that Wheeler mutt had brought over. Two of the scrolls he brought back to his own desk, and after delaying a few minutes so Sara didn't get the impression he had nothing better to do than wait for her to arrive, he called Marla and instructed her to show Sara in.

"Hello, Sara," he said brusquely as soon as Marla had retreated, shutting the door behind her. "I understand Mokuba brought the scrolls we'd already read through back to Illusions Tower. I had the ones we hadn't gotten to yet brought down, and I assume you brought some new ones back with you?"

"I… yes." She seemed taken aback by his getting straight to business. "Well, Mokuba did, anyway. He brought them up to your flat."

Kaiba bit down on his annoyance with his brother. "I think we should probably work here in the office. It's a little more conducive to studying here than upstairs, don't you agree?"

She wasn't quite meeting his eyes, but she seemed to get the message. "That's fine with me."

"Well, then, let's not waste any more time. The sooner we get through these documents, the sooner I can go back to doing my own work." He indicated with his arm the conference table, then pulled over one of the scrolls he'd brought back to his desk and carefully unrolled it.

"Seto, wait. I think we should clear the air first, don't you?"

Kaiba gritted his teeth but kept his face impassive and looked up at her expectantly without saying anything.

"I, uh… I'm afraid we got a little carried away last night," she said, faltering. "I… I don't normally do that sort of thing, and I don't think we should let it happen again. I came here to help find a ritual that would bring two pharaohs' spirits back from Duat after their bodies have been destroyed, and as much as I appreciate the dinner and you and your brother taking the time to teach me that game, I think we should just concentrate on finding a ritual."

"Agreed." He looked back down at his scroll. When she didn't move, he lifted his eyes to meet her gaze but was careful to keep his face cold and expressionless. "Anything else?"

She shifted her jaw, the uncomfortable look from a moment before becoming something more like annoyance. "No, that's all. I just wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings and that we agreed to keep things strictly professional from now on."

"I think we're in agreement," he said.

The agreement lasted all the way through dinner. Working in the office with Kaiba staying behind his desk and Sara at the conference table helped, and he found her only a minor distraction. They made it through several texts each without finding anything of use, although it was slow going at first since he had to stop and frequently query her about the nature of any reference or ritual he found pertaining to death, and naturally any ancient Egyptian text would be rife with them.

Still, they were able to work for more than four solid hours before Mokuba, predictably, appeared at his office door wondering when he was planning on eating. "It's getting late, Seto. I ordered some takeout. Italian okay, Sara? I got some pasta and calzones from Fratelli's"

"Italian is wonderful."

"Bring it down when it arrives," Kaiba directed his brother without looking up from the journal he was reading.

"It's already here, but up at the penthouse."

Kaiba looked up at him, frowning at the slightly mischievous tone. "Well, bring it down here."

"Oh, come on, Seto, you're not gonna make poor Sara work through dinner, are you? You've been at it for, like, four hours. Come upstairs and eat."

"Mokuba…"

"Nii-sama, I haven't seen you all day. The least you can do is eat dinner upstairs with me."

While this ploy rarely worked on Kaiba, it had the desired effect on Sara. "I don't think there's any harm in taking a break for dinner so you can eat with your brother."

Mokuba would not be dissuaded, and having won Sara over to his cause, there was nothing for it but to relent. When they arrived at the penthouse, Kaiba saw that not only had Mokuba set out dinner for them, he'd poured some wine for Kaiba and Sara—my good Terralba, he noted with irritation. Well, at least Mokuba had chosen an Italian wine that went with dinner, even if his motives were rather transparent.

Sara seemed unfazed, however, and like the night before at Shiroki Ryu, Mokuba kept conversation flowing and entertaining while Kaiba merely ate his calzone. He watched Sara as she laughed at some story Mokuba told about how Kaiba had made him Tournament Commissioner for Battle City when he was all of eleven, and how seriously he'd taken the job, running all over town blowing his whistle. Even Kaiba couldn't help but smirk at the memory.

Sara had a deep, throaty laugh, and he found it surprising, not only because her voice wasn't deep, but because there was something that seemed almost incongruous about her laughing and looking happy. It took him a moment to realize he'd been thinking of Kisara and how solemn and sad she'd been the one time he'd spoken with her up close, and he took a quick sip of wine to mask his exasperation with himself.

They'd no sooner finished eating when Mokuba disappeared into his room. Sara started cleaning up the food containers, plasticware, and wine glasses.

"You don't have to do that, Sara." Kaiba stood up to follow her into the kitchen. "A maid'll come by in the morning."

She made a face at him. "Nonsense. It's a few food wrappers and two wine glasses. I think we can manage without a maid, don't you?"

"Hm." Leaning against the counter near the doorway, he folded his arms and watched her rinse out the glasses.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "You grunt a lot, you know that? You can use actual words. They don't cost you anything."

He merely smirked at her.

She turned back to the sink, pushing a loose strand of hair away from her face. "Mokuba's quite an amazing young man. He's a typical teenager, knowing everything and wanting to assert his individuality, and he's so warm and sociable. But still, a part of him really wants to be just like you."

"Cold and anti-social, you mean?"

She turned to look at him more fully, flushing a little. "Oh no, I didn't mean—"

"Yes you did." He waved her off when she opened her mouth to protest again. "I'm not unaware of my own character traits, and being warm and sociable has never exactly been a goal of mine. I'm a businessman and a duelist, and neither of those things requires me to be particularly kind."

"But being a guardian to your brother does."

Kaiba stiffened and gave her a dark look. "I know how to be a guardian to Mokuba. I've been doing it since I was ten."

"I wasn't implying there was anything wrong with how you look after Mokuba." She cocked her head. "On the contrary, it seems to me you have a wonderful relationship. You are clearly quite devoted to each other. And while you may be curt towards him, there's still a real warmth underneath, so I don't think you're quite as cold as you think you are."

"Mokuba's different." He gritted his teeth, turning away. "And you're right, he's nothing like me."

"I didn't say he was nothing like you. And teenage rebellion aside, I think he would be crushed to hear you say that."

"It wasn't an insult."

She was silent for a moment, and when he turned to look at her again, he found that she'd come away from the sink and was standing next to him, her arms crossed as she appraised him.

"You're a confusing person, Seto Kaiba. A bit of a git, really. And no, I don't think Mokuba will ever keep people at arm's length the way you do. But I rather suspect that's by design on your part." She tilted her head as if trying to puzzle him out and he suddenly found it difficult to swallow. Moving closer to him, she reached up and brushed her fingertips along his jaw line. "Although to be perfectly honest, there are worse things in the world Mokuba could become than like you."

His hand shot up and grabbed her wrist, holding it back from his face. He met her gaze, and for a long moment they stood frozen, not even daring to breathe. Then slowly, she stretched up onto her toes and he found himself leaning down towards her despite the voice in his head screaming that this was a very bad idea. Her lips brushed against his and he closed his eyes at the sensation that it caused until it overrode the screaming voice, silencing it completely. He let go of her wrist to grasp her shoulders and pull her roughly towards him, turning her gentle kiss into something much more demanding. Hungrily, he devoured her mouth, then trailed down her neckline. When it began to be difficult to reach down much further, he lifted her up onto the counter so that she was more level with him and he didn't have to bend down so far to reach her collar. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed herself against him, leaning back to give him better access to her throat. His hands found their way to her hair and pulled out the clip holding it up at the back of her head, letting it fall loose down past her shoulders. He curled his fingers into it, holding her steady as his lips made their way down to the opening of her blouse.

She moaned, her breath coming in gasps. "Seto… what about… mmmm… what about Mokuba?"

Kaiba growled at her throat. "Let him get his own girl."

"Seto, he… he could walk in here at any momennnnnn—"

He brought his head back up to kiss her mouth again, cutting her off. "Then I think a change of venue is in order."