Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 199(@200wpm)___ 159(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
It’s my dream come true—a little flower shop and plant nursery all of my own. I’ve got the perfect name, Jasmine, regular customers, but there’s a new customer in particular.
Not only is he insanely good-looking, and older, he causes my heart to flutter and my blood to warm.
Then I find out he’s single, one of the most eligible bachelors in the city. So who is he buying all those flowers for?
It just so happens he’s on the look out for the perfect flower. And that flower is me. But will he only pluck my petals and discard me or help me bloom?
* He Loves Me Lots is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Jasmine
I don’t know, but I don’t think I’m the only florist who does this… or the only girl.
He loves me… He loves me not.
He loves me… He loves me…
I’m plucking the wilting or wayward petals from the dozens of bunches of flowers and plants I have for sale in the store.
My store.
It still blows my mind it was just a pipe dream last year.
He loves me… He loves me?
Not.
“So, which is it today, Jaz?” Iris asks as she comes into the store with the steaming morning coffee she always brings me. She is trembling with age, and I know a touch of rheumatism gives her problems in cold weather like this.
“Not,” I announce firmly, giving a little shrug after making it seem like I have to think about it. My answer drew a click from Iris’ tongue as she rolled her eyes to the heavens.
She gives me such a strange look, almost as if she’s genuinely disappointed, that I have to giggle.
“Thanks,” I squeak, lifting the takeout cup from her hands to mine, blowing on the piping hot brew.
“That man…,” Iris sighs with feigned bitterness. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she says to herself, still shaking her head.
As if there is such a thing as a real man… as if anyone ever would fall head over heels in love with a girl like me.
I don’t have three heads or anything, but I’m not built like the regular, prettier girls—the girls who go to the gym every day.
And these days, I’m so busy with work that it would have to be one special guy to grab my attention. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
“Well, it’s already past nine,” I echo back to her, keeping the charade going.
“Why, he could walk through that door at any moment,” I exclaim, giving a look of mock expectation. I flutter my lids and press a hand over my heart as I look longingly at the empty doorway.
The dull gray of the early winter’s day outside only makes it look more unlikely. I could use the scenery from an artsy, but depressing, black-and-white photograph to sum up my life in one image.
I’m grateful when Iris creases a smile only people who’ve lived through so much can give.
“He will, honey. He will,” she promises me, shifting her gaze to the bunches of yesterday’s flowers I have bundled up on the counter.
“For me?” she asks, her face lighting up as if I’m trying to sweep her off her feet. It’s nothing like that.
“They sure are,” I pronounce.
This dream-come-true store of mine couldn’t have happened without Iris. She owns the building and runs a tiny coffee place next door with her elderly husband living upstairs.
I was getting a coffee one morning, and we got to talking. Iris mentioned she had always dreamed of being a florist, and she wished she had the time and energy to have plants and flowers in her coffee shop.
With the offer of free rent for six months (or until I could afford to pay it) and a promise of all the unsold flowers that she wanted to decorate the tables in her little shop, the idea became reality.
Without telling me, she also put up her building as security on a small business loan in her name that is to be repaid when I can afford it, like the rent on the place. Iris also gave me the only checkbook for the business account, which she later put into my name.
“Just in case you have a quiet spell,” she reasoned when I tried to refuse her kindness.
“If it’s still there in five years, we give it back, and you pay the interest. Remember, it’s there, and I’ll be mad as hell if I find out you haven’t used it if you need it,” she reminds me every time I bring it up, always giving me a disarming wink and a little squeeze of her arm around my shoulders.
She is warm as a grandma but also as shrewd as an uptown lawyer.
Business is good—way better than I’d hoped. Without the hassle of high rent in the city center, it was easier than I thought to pay my way after just a few months.
The shrill buzz of her coffee shop’s door alarm interrupts us, meaning she has a customer of her own. Without needing to explain, she leaves quickly. Knowing she’ll come back for the flowers later, I sip my latte and feel my heart swell a little as I watch her go.
What a woman!
I hope I’m as kind and active as she is when I’m her age. She could run circles around me, I’m sure. I really like Iris. She’s the closest thing to family I have and a genuine friend. It is nice to know I have someone to count on, and she knows she can count on me.