With a suppressed yelp Diane jumped up, and skipped around Mark’s desk to grasp his broad, muscular shoulders.  Her hands, tiny in comparison, seemed to disappear against the expanse of his white crisp Oxford custom-tailored shirt.

“Thank you, Mark!”

As she gripped him, or tried to, he laughed a little, and warned her, “Don’t be so quick to thank me, Diane.”

“We take it to George with a minor change.”

She let go of his shoulders then, and frowned slightly, stepping away and rocking back on her heels to consider him with a wary eye, her initial excitement tapering off.

“I’ll recommend we take you off what I had you doing, which was focusing on our food and drug industry targets, and have you focus on this area instead.  It’s going to take everything you’ve got, Diane.”

As she yelped again, and moved to try to grip him by his shoulders, he raised his massive palms up, in a cautionary gesture.

“You’ll be our point person on this, and I’ll be guiding you.  But if things go south, it won’t look good for you, Diane.  Ok?  Fair warning.”

As she swallowed, he grimaced, “Well … it won’t look good for me either.”

“So I hope you’re sure about this.”

“I am. I won’t let you down, Mark.”

“You’d better not.  George had his heart set on a couple of tech plays.  We may still do those, but not as big as we’d been planning, if we move some of the funds planned for those to this .. um … in-house green tech fund you want to set up.”

He smiled at her and handed her tablet back to her, then waved an arm at her, as if urging her to finally go home for the day, while he picked up the phone with the other hand.

“So will you just scram already?  You’re making me late for my drink with John and Logan.  And don’t bother showing your face around here tomorrow, either,” he pretended to be gruff.

“Umm… it’s Saturday tomorrow, Mark.”

“So?” he growled.  Then he continued, grinning as he said, “You’ve been working seven days a week since you’ve been here.  I thought I should remind you that it’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“You work seven days a week, too,” she pointed out, smirking as she collected her handbag from the chair she’d sat on.