"A little bit of truth"

Noland closed his eyes with a sigh. He dreaded confrontations but it was most certain that he would have one in an hour, when Crown showed up. A gentle knock on the door made him open his eyes again and sit straight. "Come in."

Catherine walked in, and his eyes widened. She was looking down at her hands and her dark red hair fell on both sides of her face. "Do... do you have a moment Hillhouse?"

He nodded and she tilted her head up slightly to catch his response; she took a deep breath and closed the door. "My uncle is going to come by soon... and he is going to ask you to be like a consultant for me... I wanted to come before that so I can tell you that you can say no... I know you have a lot going on in your mind with the Crown case... Your new job role in the firm... I know adjusting is not easy..."

A knock on the door cut her speech and as Noland's lip twitched with amusement, he laid on his chair and replied. "Come in."

Quickly enough the door opened and Felix walked in, he was about to say something but then stopped when he saw Catherine, who was now red with embarrassment.

"Interesting... to find you here Catherine." Felix began as he looked at her, then he turned to look at Noland and chuckled. "Was she trying to convince you to say no to me, Noland?"

Catherine gasped and Noland began to smile more obviously. "At the contrary, Felix... She was telling me of your idea to be her consultant, and she was checking on me to see if I had the time."

Felix perked a brow briefly, but then he smiled. "So? Do you have the time?"

Noland looked straight at Catherine with a heartfelt smile and nodded. "I will make the time, and be happy to help."

She blushed, again, but this time it felt different. She smiled back at him and nodded. "Thank you, Hillhouse."

"Noland, you can call me by my name if we are going to be working together." He added and she nodded quickly.

Felix grinned and turned around to leave. "Perfect, now I can schedule my flight and go back home. Vanessa probably has already spent half of my salary shopping with the excuse that it compensates her missing me." He laughed and both Catherine and Noland joined him.

Once Felix left, Noland smiled and gestured Catherine to the chair in front of him, she walked slowly, a little nervous.

"What do you need help with, by the way?"

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I am not really good with laws... I have been studying in England for the Marketing department, mainly to assist father in the lobby area of the firm. But I am facing some other lawyers almost daily and I feel a bit..." She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Frustrated?" Noland added and she opened her eyes and chuckled but nodded.

"I really don't want to disappoint my father, and I want my uncle to be able to return to England where he is needed. I just... need some guidance."

He nodded and smiled at her. "I will do what I can, how about we go through some of your doubts after we finish our dailies?"

"I am free now, but I guess you won't be soon, isn't Mister Crown coming to talk to you and your partner soon?"

"Sadly, but it is something that must be done... I have found some things that need to be questioned and only he can give the answers."

Catherine perked a brow. "What is wrong, Noland?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't worry, ok? I don't want you or Felix to worry about anything until me and Gregory can get ourselves as deep as we can into the mater."

She nodded and didn't push for more; strangely he gave her a feeling of trust, and she decided to leave him to prepare. "Will you let me know how everything goes? And if he is giving you any sort of troubles, don't be afraid to talk to me about them. I know he is very special, I shared schools with his sister, and not even her stands him."

Noland let go a laugh and she smiled. "I will let you know how it goes. Coffee after five?"

Her face lit with a smile. "I would love to. Until then." She headed to the door and walked out feeling different from when she walked in.

At 3 o'clock sharply, Romina called to Noland's office and he picked up right after the first ring. "Mister Hillhouse, Mister Olsen and Mister Crown are heading to the conference room."

"Thank you Romina, I will meet them there." He picked up his phone and the thick file he put together and headed to their encounter.

As soon as he open the door, he saw Gregory on the floor with his nose bleeding hovering on top of a very beaten up Howard Crown. "Greg what in the world?!" Noland rushed to them.

"You are fired! Both of you! I will have the entire Firm fire you as well! No one touches me and gets away with it!" A very angry and shaken Crown cursed as Noland pulled his partner away from him.

"Just one more minute Nol... let me go and give me one more minute with this fucking asshole and I will show him what being fired is... I will burn his ass..." Gregory yelled as he let Noland keep him away; he was probably equally strong to him, but what he wanted was to make Crown scared, not actually hit him more.

"What is happening here?!" Catherine stood at the door, drawn by the screaming and the cursing. Seconds after, Curt stepped in and took a hold of Crown and kept him standing, making blind omission to his constant attempts of being let go.

"This is the worst law firm in the world! Attacking your own clients? I will make the world crush you all down!" Crown spit poison and struggled against the iron grip of Curt around his shoulder. "Let me go for fucks sake!"

"Mister Crown, you are not going anywhere until we clarify what is going on here. And you can be absolutely certain no one will leave this room until everything is sorted out." Catherine said with confidence as she locked the door and walked towards Noland and Gregory.

"I want you to tell this monkey to let me go!" Crown insisted, and this time Catherine frowned and looked at him.

"You can suit us if you wish, I have many lawyers, but not before we clear things up. And you better make yourself comfortable Mister Crown, that 'monkey' has direct orders from me to not let you go until I say so." Her eyes bored into his and he growled in anger, but he didn't said another word.

Noland saw her stand in front of him and her eyes were filled with worry, he examined Gregory, who seemed a bit shocked with her attentions, as she inspected his face. "It doesn't look like anything serious, you should be fine Olsen. Can you talk?"

"Yes, I can..." He nodded and spoke briefly.

"Good, so you can explain to me what is going on." She said and sat at one of the chairs.

Gregory stood a little confused, he looked at her then at Crown before he finally began to talk. "I met him at the reception, as he attended our scheduled meeting... we came up here and waited for Noland... he was being an ass trying to show how important he was and when I told him we had some questions concerning the case... that some things didn't add well... he said that he was paying big bucks for us to fix his mess... So I asked him 'So you hid things from us on purpose?' and he just mocked me and said my job was not to ask questions, rather solve his problems. And that's when I hit him." Gregory finished without remorse, he stared back at Crown who looked back at him in anger.

"Is this true, Howard?" Catherine stood up and walked to him, catching him with his guards down.

He stared at her a little surprised before he frowned and shook his head. "Your firm never had moral issues before, why start now?"

"Answer my question, Howard... did you hide valuable information regarding your case to us?" Catherine's frame seemed to equal size with him as her voice rose.

"I had a deal... with McLane... where is he?" Crown's response made Catherine furious.

She stood right in front of him, which forced him to look her in the eyes. "I won't repeat my question, and I want an answer."

"You can't keep me against my will here... this is against the law and you will pay for this, let me go now!"

"Curt, you can do whatever you like to make him talk, I take full responsibility..." Catherine said as she turned around towards Noland and Gregory.

"Fine!" Crown growled. "There were more people involved and some insurance in the process... but that bitch cheated on me! That was no lie!"

Catherine faced him. "And why did you lie to us?"

He frowned and took several seconds before he replied. "Byron said he would take care of everything... and the insurance money would fill my pocket at the same time it hurt that bitch..."

She had her hands tight into fist as she tried hard to control her breathing. "Byron is not working for us any longer. And what you were trying to do is against the law Howard... you should be ashamed of yourself!"

"Like you never did something against the law before, Kitty Cat... you and my sister..." A firm palm hit Crown's face interrupting his message.

"Don't you dare comparing me and your sister trying pot... with your attempt at insurance fraud!"

"You slut...!" This time, a very angry Noland hit his face with a full fist, there was a crack that sounded across the room.

Gregory rushed in between them and shook his head. "Curt, let's take this idiot to one of our special rooms, I will show it to you..."

Curt nodded as he saw the situation required them to pull Crown away, before his mouth got him more injuries. Gregory quickly opened the door and guided Curt out.

Noland turned around to see Catherine and he was shocked by the anger in her face; the shock was immediately replaced by worry as he saw her holding her hand with extreme care. He walked next to her and examined the slow swelling. "Catherine, we need to put some ice in your hand..."

She froze as her eyes locked on his and the tension faded; her cheeks blushed but she nodded. "Ok..." she whispered almost breathlessly.

He walked guiding her to the mini-bar and quickly removed the small tray of ice cubes, putting it on the table. He then removed his handkerchief from his back pocket and laid it as well, taking the tray back and spilling the cubes on the fabric. All of these with just one hand, as the other one remained holding hers gently.

She felt her heart swell with emotions; he was so gentle and attentive it was almost overwhelming. She shook her head and shivered when he put the ice on her hand. "It will be uncomfortable at first, but you just need to put it on for a few minutes. You should be ok." He mentioned as he took a closer look to her hand.

She chuckled softly. "And you? Your hand took a larger hit..." She mentioned as she tried to see his hand.

He smiled at her and shook his head. "I will be fine; haven't hit anyone in a while, but it wasn't the first time either."

She wasn't really surprised by that revelation, she wasn't afraid either; to her, he was a gentleman.

A knock on the door distracted her, Gregory came in a little frustrated. "This is getting serious, I think we better redraw from his case, what do you think?"

"I think it will make us look very bad, and it will get to the press. Howard has a big ego and he is hiding something equally big, I think there is more into his story than what he revealed to us. If we redraw he will bring the case to the public and will try to make us look bad... I can't let my father see that in the news, he isn't out of the hospital yet." Catherine sighed and shook her head.

"Well, legally we can redraw from the case, but the drama he will bring is, indeed, something we have no power on... although I am not sure he will want to ruin his reputation doing that... if he takes this to the public we can make him look equally bad." Noland said, trying to ease Catherine's worries.

"You can redraw legally? I didn't know this was possible..." She added with concern.

"Well... about that... Noland had an idea before, on how we should add a clause to our contracts where we can protect ourselves from any legal backlash if our clients hold information from us. I took his idea and made it happen, Crown's contract with us has that clause." Gregory explained with a smirk on his face.

Catherine held silent for a moment, looking from Noland to Gregory and then back at Noland, then she started to laugh and shook her head. "You both are truly brilliant..."

Noland chuckled and Gregory laughed, only then noticing Catherine and Noland's exchange. She was going to release his hand but he held it tighter, giving a look at his friend. "If Crown is contained for now, we should get our team together and start working on some research. When I finish with Catherine's hand and put a bandage on it, I will meet you at the usual spot, ok Greg?" He turned to look at Catherine's hand, avoiding to meet her eyes for the moment. She was blushing deeply again and was very thankful that he saved her the embarrassment.

"Ok... we might need to dig deeper than usual in this case... you know that..." Gregory added from the door.

"I know, I don't like it but I know... and I will see what we can do." Noland finished. Once the door was closed, he took the wet handkerchief from her hand and released it. "I will look for something to wrap in your hand."

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "There is no need, thank you. I will be fine Noland... Now, will you explain to me what Gregory meant with you both doing deeper research? It sounded very unusual."

He sighed and looked at the window. "I still need to think about this Catherine, I hope you don't take offense but I would prefer to work on this a little more before presenting it to you." He then stared at her eyes and smiled. "Maybe this afternoon, with our coffee."

Her eyes sparkled and she blushed again, nodding and walking towards the door. "I will take your word on that. I look forward to our next encounter then." She smiled and waved a hand as he waved back with a smile wider than he could ever remember having.

After she left, he sighed and pondered. There was something about her that drew out a part of him that he thought was already dead, and now he felt a little worried but at the same time excited with the perspective of working closer with her.

Coffee never seemed so appetizing for him as it did now.