Drives Around

Darren drives around until he finally makes it to the office. Given the high-profile cases he’s handled over the last year, he can't simply be fired on the spot—he has to face a formal partner hearing. When he arrives, security guards escort him straight into a glass-walled conference room, barring him from speaking to anyone else in the building. His assigned peer advisor—one of Gertrude's junior associates—has to speak on his behalf while the firm systematically railroads him out the door.

The entire morning is spent constructing a meticulous narrative that paints him as a workplace predator and a stalker whom the female staff have been too terrified to report. His gaze keeps drifting across the table toward Gertrude's wife, Laly Renoir. With her striking long black hair, olive-toned skin, long legs, and voluptuous figure, she cuts an imposing silhouette. Rumors have always swirled about her past life before she became a celebrity plastic surgeon for high-end clientele, but right now, she represents the ultimate weapon being used to crush him.

Darren desperately wants to leap to his feet and defend himself, his traditionalist ego screaming against the humiliation of being silenced. But he forces himself to stick to the plan. At the end of the grueling session, the partners finally call Laly into the conference room as the recess begins.

There is small recess