She smiled back at him, blinking back tears. “Yeah, about six hours ago. She’d just landed in Heathrow. Then she sent me an iMessage about an hour ago that she was turning in for the night. I think they’re planning a bunch of things for tomorrow.”

The waiter came by bringing 3 small dishes, amuse bouches courtesy of the chef, he explained, while another brought Tina’s sparkling water.

After they each finished their individual portions of what the chef sent over, Kate smiled at Tina, “Well, I think it’s sweet that you’re missing her like that. You two obviously have something special going on. George said that Bette was instantly different whenever you were around, or whenever she returned to the office after seeing you for lunch or something.”

Tina gave George a grateful smile. He returned her smile with a fond grin, “Yeah, she moves around like she’s walking on air, all buoyant and everything. You make her laugh, Tina.”

Tina brushed a tear away, and cleared her throat. She asked, “Well … enough about Bette and I. What about you two? What’s your story?”

Kate laughed lightly, again, “We met during a business meeting, actually. In San Francisco.”

“We were on opposing sides of a deal,” George added. “The client we were arranging financing for was buying another firm.”

“A smaller one, comparatively,” Kate smirked. She tweaked George’s nose, “Come on, you can say it!”

He grinned, “Oh, okay. I’ll say it. She was representing a smaller firm…”

“My cousin’s,” she explained briefly.

“That was steadfastly arguing for a higher price,” George continued.

“And which they were advising their client not to agree to,” Kate rejoined.

“So she and Diane were going at it, toe to toe, throwing break-up cost figures, brickbats, and what not across the table,” George recalled ruefully.

Tina smiled. Diane could be a tenacious adversary in the board room, Bette had once said. 

“And when it got particularly tense, I quipped to our client that I was a green tech virgin, so maybe he could tell me what the value proposition of this firm that he wanted to buy was, bottom-line,” George said with a laugh.

“Virgin my ass,” Kate responded quickly, “excuse me… pardon my French.”

Tina laughed.

“He was effective though. By then my cousin had tired of the whole argument, and whispered to me that the valuation proposed by Diane was exactly what he’d thought, too,” Kate said with a grimace, still smarting, apparently, from the incident.