Law #1: Never Bet on Love: A Sweet Billionaire Love Story (Laws of Love) by Agnes Canestri (the beginning after the end novel read .TXT) 📗

chooses is too close to the first begonia. I put my hand on her wrist to halt her movement and a tiny zap sizzles through my fingers.

Her eyes flick to mine. “What’s the matter?”

“We need more distance,” I say, but my actual words get lost in a raspy murmur. Why does my voice have this permanent breathy quality when I’m with Eva?

“How much?” she inquires.

“Like fourteen inches.”

“Fourteen inches, huh? That would be…” Her eyes scan the ground as if a ruler is supposed to pop up and advise her.

I come to her aid. “The length of your palm twice.”

“How do you know how big my hand is?” Her eyes are alarmed, as if she suddenly suspects me of having climbed into her bedroom while she slept just to measure her palms. Eva’s invitation to join her in the garden has made me almost forget how cautious she can be with me. But now, with the wariness back on her face, a doubt that occurred to me during our last meeting rushes back.

Is there a more profound reason why Eva despises wealthy men so much? Maybe some past trauma? It’d be better to find it out sooner or later. Preferably sooner though. I can’t combat a ghost I don’t understand.

“It’s an educated guess.” I hurry to calm her before her mistrust has a chance to fully develop. “We can easily check it if I’m right, but to do that, you’ll need to give me your hand.”

She turns toward me, her facial muscles still tense. “Why would you need that?”

“Because I know that my own hand is eleven inches long. So if I compare yours against mine, we can get a good estimate of its size.”

“Eleven inches? Wow…that’s very long,” she murmurs, then presses her lips together as if she regrets what she just said. The color spreading on her cheeks resembles the scarlet hue of the begonias she wanted to start with.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

She avoids my gaze. “Yes, it is.” But she’s still chewing vehemently on her lower lip which makes me think that she’s still feeling embarrassed.

“It’s not like you offended me by saying I have big hands. It’s rather a compliment. You know what they say about big hands, right?” I wink at her.

My joke is borderline flirtatious, but my intention is to ease up her tension.

However, the way she winces makes me realize it might have been exactly this proverbial truth that made her flustered in the first place. Which also means that she might have thought… No, Nathan. Don’t even go there.

And indeed I shouldn’t. I’m losing my composure with Eva already as it is. Any idea that could increase this odd prickle on my scalp needs to be banished from my head.

I hold out my palm to her. “Here, let’s see if my guess was right or not.”

She eyes my hand, then places hers into it. It’s slightly smaller than I assumed, but it sits perfectly on mine. Almost as if it was made to fit in my palm. Not to mention the soothing heat that sears into my skin from hers.

I swallow to send the lump forming in my throat on its way. “Well, I was wrong. You’re rather a six-point-five. Good that we checked. So you need to measure twice your palm and then add a bit to get the right distance.”

Eva pulls her hand back, but just before we separate, her thumb brushes on a rougher patch of skin on my index finger. “How did you get this? Probably not from hovering over a keyboard, right?”

“My favorite sport is climbing. The pressure on your grip is prone to giving you calluses.”

“Climbing? Huh, that explains the—” She breaks off and bites her lip.

“Explains…what?”

“Your wide shoulders. I wondered how you got those.”

She wondered about my figure? Now if that isn’t a good sign…

I arch my back a little so that my pectorals become more evident. “Ah, so you noticed them.”

The previous dark pink returns to her cheeks, making my chest quiver. Eva drops her gaze and begins to measure the right distance with her palms. When she’s done, she throws a questioning look at me. “Good?”

“That seems about right.” I agree distractedly because my thoughts are still occupied with how adorable Eva looks when she’s flustered. “I can dig the holes,” I add. “Let’s keep your palms for our measurement.”

We spend the next twenty minutes or so working side by side. We use Eva’s hands to establish the correct spots for the seedlings, and I gouge the pits with my spade. After we’re done with one line, I carry a crate over and set it by the holes. The one with red flowers, since it’s the one Eva wanted to begin with.

Eva, meanwhile, procures us gloves so that we don’t get dirty when actually planting the begonias. The ones she gives me must have belonged to her step-father, and they sit too tight on my hands, but I don’t complain. To tell the truth, I hardly notice the uncomfortable pressure at all. I’m too distracted with the chat Eva and I are having.

Our movements are synchronized like a well-oiled machine, so that we don’t have to waste any words on establishing who pinches the transplants out of the pots and who covers them with soil. This leaves us plenty of occasion to discuss our lives instead.

I can’t fathom how easy it is to speak with Eva and how much fun I’m having with her. I don’t have to pretend that I care about what she has to share with me because I actually do.

Eva seems at ease with me, too. It’s as if the common denominator, gardening, dissolves all the barriers that should supposedly stand in our way. Like that we come from different cultural, social, and financial backgrounds.

We touch upon so many different topics like how I refurbished my house, Eva’s dancer friends, her grandmother’s church, Murphy’s weird sense of hairstyle—she brings it up, so I don’t feel that bad about commenting