How to use "associate" in a sentence

He had become not just a valued business associate, but a good friend as well, a big brother.

Tina kept a well-stocked bar in one corner of her office for those infrequent occasions when a business associate needed a drink after a long work session

He was considerably more formidable than his associate: tall, rough-edged, with large, big-knuckled, leathery hands - like something that had escaped from a recombinant DNA lab experimenting in the crossbreeding of human beings with bears

Dombey, who clearly did not share his associate's compulsion to play hero, remained docile in his chair