Chapter 15: Dinner

Roland walked in to find two heaving bodies recuperating on the gray couch. He pretended not to notice their nudity, not to mention the red streaks decorating their skin and the spent condom on the coffee table. "Mr. Kaiba?"

Seto Kaiba nudged Joan off his chest and rolled into a sitting position. "Yes?"

"You might like to know that dinner begins in fifteen minutes," Roland said.

"Dinner?" Joan shot up, realizing she'd skipped lunch. She grabbed her purse and clothes, then dashed to a bathroom to check her makeup.

Roland spotted Seto's injured palm as he leaned in close to his boss. The blood had already stopped flowing from the shallow cut, but Roland still found it alarming. "Sir, will she be . . . joining you?"

Seto rubbed a bite mark on his clavicle. "Obviously."

Roland had read the San Francisco Chronicle article in the taxi he'd taken back to the Hyatt, but Seto's sudden attachment to this woman still struck Roland as surreal. "In the banquet hall, sir?"

"Where else?" Seto rose and headed through the master bedroom into the master bathroom on the opposite end of the suite from Joan. He needed to clean his wound in peace and guzzle water from the tap before she suckered more fluids out of him.

"I'll secure an additional ticket, sir." Roland eyed the broken phone and notepad with what appeared to be an email and password with two drops of blood as he called the front desk. He put the pieces together and figured out that they were a mess for him to handle. Roland counted on a late night. Thankfully, after the police had realized he was a professional who wouldn't respond to any legal interrogation tactics and that his boss could easily sue them over any illegal ones, they'd allowed him to sleep.

After scrubbing the blood from her body and touching up her makeup, Joan emerged from the bathroom with a bounce to find Seto fully dressed in a white suit with a blue tie. She thanked her lucky stars that her wardrobe update with Mokuba had yielded something appropriately matched. Her new blue dress sported a faux blazer with white trim, something she figured she could wear to a job interview if the need arose.

Joan tucked her hand under Seto's arm and they strode into the elevator with Roland in tow. Once on the bottom floor, Roland picked up a small square ticket from the onyx front desk. He then led Joan and Seto to a set of open double doors and handed three tickets to an attendant who merely nodded at them as they passed through the doors into a room filled with round tables decked with white tablecloths.

The boisterous babble of the banquet hall fell to hushed titters as the occupants noticed the CEO of Kaiba Corporation arrive with none other than the infamous whore. Seto and Joan entered the buffet line and began loading their plates. When they were halfway through, someone worked up the courage to yell, "Hey Kaiba, Marc Aurelio wants his whore back!"

Seto turned to face the voice but could not discern who had spoken. It made no difference. His devilish smirk blasted the entire room. "Marc's girlfriend. My whore."

The pressure abated as Joan felt the claim cement her new relationship status. Love or not, Seto never wanted a girlfriend. She would never be that to him, never navigate that limbo punctuated by awkward moments the way she had to with so many others. Being an employee was much more straightforward, not to mention financially stable. She didn't want to deal with intermittent expensive gifts she would have to sell to pay rent, let alone her student loan debt. Her wave of relief swept away her agoraphobia as she smirked beside Seto.

The game developers exchanged confused glances in silence as Joan and Seto finished filling their plates. The duo spotted Mokuba sitting at an almost empty table with a Hyatt security officer standing nearby and went to join him.

The lone small-time Slavic CEO at Mokuba's table stood and offered handshakes to Seto and Joan. "I was hoping to have an opportunity to meet the esteemed kurva. In my country, that is what we call people of your profession."

Joan liked the way kurva rolled off the Slav's tongue. "Thanks." Joan gave Mokuba's hand a small squeeze as she sat down beside him and Seto flanked her other side.

Roland sat beside the Slav, across the table from Joan, keeping a close eye on his employers as well as everything happening behind their backs while he ate.

Seto gritted his teeth and regarded the Slavic CEO with suspicion. Thankfully, the interloper's cordiality towards Joan revealed itself to be nothing more than a strategy to secure a coveted contract with Kaiba Corporation. The Slavic CEO proceeded to pitch his latest game in a heavy accent.

At one point, Mokuba got up for seconds and whispered to Roland, "Joan and I are going to need bodyguards for a while. I tried to drop by my office earlier and it was crawling with reporters, so I just kept driving. Can you pick some reliable people for us?"

"Yes, sir." Roland wondered if he'd be able to catch any sleep at all this night.

The Slavic CEO realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with the Kaibas and graciously excused himself from the table.

Mokuba returned trailed by Duke Devlin. Duke sat down with a plate of devil's food cake and began, "Dude. I am. So. Sorry. That was some fucked shit. That's the absolute last time I invite Pegasus to a party."

Seto gave Duke stink eye while Mokuba said, "I guess that's something. Thanks, Duke."

Duke disregarded Seto's sour expression and spoke to him as if they were best buddies. "That was ballsy saying that in front of everyone, but I still don't get it. What's going on between you three? And where does Marc Aurelio fit into all this?"

Joan gave Duke a primer on polyamory, her open marriage, and how being a whore for the Kaiba brothers changed nothing in her personal life, except for the other Michael, whom she never fully clicked with anyway. Seto glanced at Joan's hands and saw that she wore no ring. He hadn't looked for one before but couldn't recall seeing one earlier either. She bore no tan lines, no indentations, nothing to indicate she had ever worn a ring on a regular basis.

"So you're not making babies with Mokuba?" Duke clarified.

"Correct," Joan stated.

Duke smirked. "How about making some babies with me?"

"I've had enough of this." Seto gripped Joan's hand and stood. Joan shot an apologetic look back at Mokuba, but Seto didn't have to drag her far before she matched his pace, falling into step beside him.