Page 46 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I remind myself that he’s just another handsome rich guy with every reason to bring me down. He even told me so.

We will bury you.

You’re supposed to listen when somebody tells you something like that. My ears are listening.

The problem is that my libido is more interested in the competency porn striptease he did with the watch back there.

I swallow. “So, what’s the deal? Why the urgency?”

“The guy who makes our environmental elements, these tiny trees? He’s from my grandfather’s era…shit.” He grabs a new square. “It’s just a long story.”

Just a long story I want to hear. Why the CEO of a powerful company has dropped everything to fix some tiny trees on a model neighborhood. “Quite the perfectionist,” I say.

“Something like that,” he says in his clipped way.Long story. Period.

Fine. Whatever, I think.

He’s got a tree base created. He holds it up to soda-flattened one.

“An earthquake and a hurricane at the same time,” I say. “Not a lot of buildings will withstand that.”

He doesn’t think it’s funny. “See those balsa dowels?” He points to the left of the shelving area. “Can you grab one?”

I get one and bring it over. He takes it and shaves a series of tiny curlicues off, and it comes to me that these are the branch thingys. He attempts to glue a tiny curlicue to the tree trunk by way of tweezers, a toothpick, and a dot of glue.

Man fingers are good for a lot of things. What are they not good for? Tiny gluing work.

He completely smears the trunk with glue, which he tries to get off with a Q-tip; he just ends up leaving fur on the trunk. “Crap.”

“You could pretend it’s Spanish moss,” I say.

He tosses it away.

“You need help?”

“I got it. I used to do a lot of this as a boy. Brett and me both. We’d spend hours doing these models.”

“When was the last time?”

“I got this. It’s like riding a bike.”

“Except you have large hands now,” I say, and not in any way like I think it’s hot.

He just tries to work at it.

“It’s too bad you don’t have somebody with you who has way more recent experience gluing tiny things to tiny surfaces with her slim, womanly hands,” I say. “It’s really a shame that there isn’t anybody like that here.”

He starts on another. Messes it up.

“Dude. Let me help.” I tie Smuckers to a chair.

“You think you’re an expert because of your Etsy dog collar store? This is a little more intricate.”

“I make jewelry of all kinds, not just dog stuff,” I tell him.

“We know,” he says.

“Come on. You make the trunks and shave the branch curlies and I’ll do the gluing. And please, your technique? With the toothpick?”

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