She shivered slightly — it was only early November, but the cold season had arrived in the city already.  Think I should switch to my cashmere coat next week, she thought.

Terry whistled and waved at the cabs approaching the building until one finally swung over to them.

Just as he was putting her into the cab, he tapped on his earpiece, answering a call from Mark.

“… yeah, I saw her at her desk.  I’m putting her in a cab now.  What? Um.. okay.  You sure you don’t want me to come in tomorrow? Alright, alright, I will.”

He tapped on the earpiece and ducked his head into the cab, asking Diane, “Scoot over would you?  Mark asked if I could take you home, get you into your apartment, and make sure you stayed there.”

In response to her slightly raised eyebrows, he chuckled, “Relax. He knows I won’t try anything, he said.”   Terry didn’t tell her Mark had also joked that Terry would have to carefully consider his physical safety, and the pocketbook, albeit deep, of his family, if he did try anything.  Diane’s K street dad in Washington, DC would probably make it rain hellfire on Terry and all his kin if he tried something.  

He waved her half-hearted protests off, and murmured it wasn’t a big deal, and that he would cancel his date with his current boyfriend.  He grinned as she rested her head on his shoulder.  The cab hadn’t driven half a block before she’d drifted off to sleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Late February after the scene above

“Where the hell did those suits come from?” Robert Miller whispered to his wife and brother as they watched a group of lawyers and a small army of assistants climb the steps of a lower Manhattan court house, flanking Jules Thomson Mann.

He turned to his lawyer, who was standing next to his brother’s lawyer, “Who are they?”

They were already nervously tapping messages to their firm into their handsets.  “Covington & Davey,” one of them answered.

“They any good?” David, Robert’s brother asked, lifting his head at them condescendingly.

The other lawyer gave him a sideways glance, and answered curtly, “The best.”

“Better than you guys?” David asked, in a mocking tone.