by Zoe Chant
Choosing the Billionaire Dragon Shifters
By Zoe Chant
Copyright Zoe Chant 2015
All Rights Reserved
“Hannah, have you ever actually met Radu and Sunny?”
Hannah frowned and pretended to be very intent on the files she was looking through, not meeting Cara’s eyes.
As offhandedly as she could Hannah said, “I’m sure I must have at some point.”
“Wait, Hannah,” Gus said.
She had to look up then. Hannah Cole had been Gus Gray’s deputy mayor for almost four years now, and he was probably her closest friend in Gray’s Hollow.
He looked horrified.
Hannah and Gus were in the middle of getting Gus’s office ready for Radu to take over. Gus had finally persuaded his younger brother to come back to Gray’s Hollow and run for mayor so that Gus could step down. Radu hadn’t actually returned to Gray’s Hollow yet, but of course the whole town would vote for whichever Gray was on the ballot.
Gus’s wife Cara was perched on top of Gus’s desk, both hands cradling her belly. Their eagerly awaited first child was due just ten days after the election. Gus could hardly bear to let Cara out of his sight these days.
“Hannah,” Gus repeated, wide-eyed. “You must have met the twins at some point. You’ve lived here for five years. You’ve been working with me since I was elected. We’ve been talking about Radu taking over for months.”
Hannah pasted on a professional smile and shrugged. “Like I said, I’m sure I must have.”
She’d met Gus’s other brothers. She had known Ilie back when he was a full-time dragon, and she’d attended Ilie’s wedding to Becca, the middle school’s new science teacher, last fall.
She had met Teo, who Gus still called Teddy. He was sweet and charming despite being the entire town’s cheerfully spoiled baby brother.
Hannah had even met Laurence, who only came to town twice a year. He’d missed Ilie’s wedding, but he’d come to Gus and Cara’s last summer. She had stood at the bar with him, chatting amiably and a little surreally about FIFA soccer for the space of half a gin and tonic.
So she must surely have met Gus’s inseparable twin brothers, Radu and Sunny. Radu was going to be the next mayor, after all.
She’d already moved out of the office adjoining Gus’s because everyone figured Sunny would want a space to hang out in while Radu did mayoral work, and Sunny and Radu were always in the same place. Hannah really liked her spacious new office across the hall.
She also knew that Deputy Mayors in Gray’s Hollow were a) entirely optional and b) appointed by the mayor. Usually they were appointed when the mayor was someone like Gus who saw the job as something of an unpleasant duty to be delegated as much as possible. Radu, everyone had told her, would be much better than Gus had been at the business of being mayor. And Radu came with a built-in deputy.
Gus seemed to think Hannah would stay on as a matter of course, but Hannah had been keeping an eye on job listings elsewhere in the state. She’d started over once already, when she moved to Gray’s Hollow. She could start over again somewhere else if she had to. It was just the waiting and not knowing that was hard; she couldn’t make any decisions until she knew what Radu meant to do.
And she had no idea what he was planning because somehow, in five years, Radu and Sunny had never so much as spoken to her. She’d seen them across various rooms, on the street and in the town square. She knew that they were technically identical, and yet, she knew that you could never mistake one of them for the other.
Radu wore his chestnut hair clipped short, and his changeable eyes usually looked silver, his face always wearing a slight scowl. His posture was square-shouldered, almost military.
Sunny’s hair was a tousle of curls, and looked a little lighter than Radu’s. His eyes looked green in his perpetually smiling face, and he was forever slouching, or leaning, or dancing...
She knew that both of them were the most beautiful men she’d ever seen. And she knew that they had both been going out of their way to avoid her ever since she moved to Gray’s Hollow. There was really no other explanation for the fact that she’d never spoken to either of them.
“Maybe they’re still annoyed that I ran against you,” Hannah suggested lightly, forcing another smile.
Gus smiled back, getting the joke. Hannah had pulled exactly four votes in the last mayoral election—one was her own, and one was Gus’s, he’d told her afterward. She’d never found out who the other two belonged to, but she’d never been in the slightest danger of taking the seat away from Gus. She’d just thought that there ought to be an option, if they were going to go through the ritual of electing a mayor. People should have a choice.
Gus had turned right around and appointed her deputy mayor, giving her—entirely undemocratically—an opportunity to take part in running the city. It wasn’t really what she had been aiming for, but it definitely convinced everyone in Gray’s Hollow that there were no hard feelings between the mayor and that upstart accountant from City Hall who’d dared to run against him.
Radu and Sunny’s objection to her must have been about something else. Hannah had spent more time than she’d like to admit trying to figure out what it was over the last few years. Especially lately, because whatever it was might just be on the verge of putting her out of a job.
***
Radu wasn’t really surprised when his twin pulled the car over at the top of the last rise before Gray’s Hollow. Everyone else might think of Sorin as the happy twin—so much that they universally called him Sunny—but he took on more than his share of worrying for the both of them.
Sorin had been worried about moving back to Gray’s Hollow for years now, which was funny since he was the one who was going to find his happily ever after there. And not funny at all, because they both knew that Radu wouldn’t, and Sorin and Radu had always shared everything.
Until now.
They sat a while in silence, not bothering to speak even mind to mind. They’d hashed this out a thousand times.
Radu had let Sorin hide from his mate for four years because Sorin kept hoping Radu would find his own. They’d made a pact when they were just boys, when they first agreed that they should pool their hoard.
Whoever found a mate first would bestow the hoard on her. It was the only thing that made sense. Neither of them could imagine separating out anything they owned into mine and yours. They had to have one hoard. And one hoard could only be given to one mate.
And a mate, unlike everything else they jointly owned, was likely to object to being shared. She’d know who her mate was, once she properly met him.
Sorin’s mate was waiting for him, all unknowing, in Gray’s Hollow.
Radu could still remember the first time he’d seen her, probably just as vividly as Sorin remembered it. That was mostly the way of their memories: they were passed back and forth so often that they became a single thing. They could rarely remember which of them had been standing where, or said what, in scenes from their childhood.
Radu remembered Hannah, though. It was after their mother died, and their father retreated into dragon form. Gus had run for mayor, and despite the short notice before the special election, Hannah had entered the race against him. She had even distributed flyers telling people to consider their options.
Gus had been really entertained by the whole idea. It had been the one thing that seemed to break through his new solemnity. Otherwise the loss of
their mother and his role as Head of the Family had weighed heavily on his shoulders.
One day Gus met Hannah at the diner near the Town Hall at lunchtime, and he’d prodded her into a conversation about why she wanted to be mayor. It had rapidly turned into a public debate, with dozens of people crowding into the diner to watch.
Teddy had called for them to come and see. The diner had already been crowded by the time Radu and Sorin arrived, straining the safe capacity of the building. Radu had hung back on the sidewalk to keep an eye on the gathering crowd and prevent too many more from trying to cram themselves inside. Sorin went in alone.
They often split up that way. They spoke so easily mind to mind that either of them could see and hear things for both, so it wasn’t like missing out.
So Radu hadn’t missed it. His first sight of Hannah Cole had been through Sorin’s eyes, and he had felt what Sorin felt: the instant, heart-pounding recognition of his mate.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, though she was, with a body made up entirely of lush, rounded curves, breast and belly and hips and thighs all inviting worship. She had bright red hair, caught up in a messy knot from which a few silky curls escaped as she spoke, her brown eyes bright with passion and her cheeks flushed as she argued with Gus—the senior Dragomir, the Gray of Gray’s Hollow, the future mayor, a dragon.
She was principled, fearless, gorgeous, and she was destined for Sorin.
Radu had known it at the same instant Sorin did. He had felt Sorin freeze right there in the crowded diner, torn between the need to claim and possess his mate and his bond to his twin. Because Sorin had always wanted it to be Radu who found his mate first.
“It isn’t fair,” Sorin repeated now, the same thing he’d said then, the same thing he’d been saying for four years. “You’re the best man I know. You must have a mate somewhere. You deserve to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy,” Radu repeated mildly, as he had many times before. For all they knew each other, he’d never been able to convince Sorin to accept this simple fact. “You’ll be happy, so I’ll be happy. And I probably don’t have a mate, not that kind. It was probably always supposed to be you. Dragon twins are rare; it must be a way of self-correcting.”
“It shouldn’t be me,” Sorin grumbled. “Just because I’m the ‘nice’ twin...”
Just because people always liked Sorin better, Sorin didn’t bother saying. Everyone liked carefree smiling Sorin. Scowling serious Radu didn’t attract people in the same way—and had never really felt the need to. Sorin attracted enough people for both of them.
Literally, in the sense of every woman Radu had ever had sex with. Sorin would accept a proposition but insist on Radu joining them. Some women refused, but it turned out a fair number would accept the serious, dull brother for the sake of the sexy, charming one, so Radu would get laid along with Sorin.
It wasn’t a bad system, but it only worked as long as Sorin wasn’t inclined to get possessive, and as long as the lady was agreeable. It worked fine when they were in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or New York or LA. It wasn’t going to work in Gray’s Hollow. It wasn’t going to work with Sorin’s mate.
“Time’s up, Sorin,” Radu said firmly.
Sorin frowned his effortful, uncustomary frown but turned the keys in the ignition.
“We’re going home,” Radu went on. “And you’re going to meet your mate properly, and I’m going to ask her to stay on as my deputy mayor while she’s too busy being head-over-heels for you to run away from me. Everybody gets what they need.”
“Stop being so damn logical,” Sorin demanded, but Radu could feel his stubbornness giving way to excitement.
Sorin tried to hide it, but he’d been pining for Hannah ever since he turned away from her in the diner. He had walked back out to the street and stared at Radu with a stricken expression Radu had never been able to forget. Sorin hadn’t bothered to say what they both knew.
They had stayed in Gray’s Hollow after that just long enough to cast their ballots—both for Hannah—and then they’d left, without fanfare. They’d barely come back since.
But now they were coming home to stay. Sorin was going to meet his mate, and Radu could finally stop feeling guilty for keeping them apart.
Sorin’s frown melted away as they closed the last miles of the distance, and he turned a beaming grin on Radu as they pulled into the town.
“She’ll—she’ll feel it too, won’t she?”
Radu couldn’t help smiling back, even if his own natural smile was just a twist at the corners of his lips. His twin’s eagerness and delight shone between them like another sun. He really didn’t need more than this secondhand happiness. If Sorin was happy, he’d be happy.
“She’ll feel it,” Radu assured him. “When she meets her mate, she’ll know.”
***
“Well,” Gus said after a moment, shaking his head and going back to the box he was packing. “We can solve that problem right now. They just got here. They’re on their way up.”
Hannah bit her lip and stared down into her files.
Not already, she thought. Not now.
But it didn’t really matter when the axe fell. If it was going to happen, now was exactly as good—or bad—a time as any. Sure, she’d probably have to leave Gray’s Hollow, but she could get a job anywhere in the county, anywhere in the state. Gus would recommend her—unless he agreed with his brothers about whatever they had against her. Unless...
“Sunny!” Cara said. “Come here and give me a hug, I’m too slow these days to come to you.”
Hannah stayed where she was, kneeling in front of a box of files, for another few seconds. Then she stood up and turned to face the doorway.
Sunny was already at Gus’s desk, hugging Cara. He wore a faded t-shirt that showed off his tan and his muscular arms, and a pair of worn jeans that clung to his ass and thighs and did nothing to hide his long, long legs.
Radu was still standing just inside the door, wearing a suit, looking every inch the proper mayoral candidate. But as Hannah’s gaze fell on him, his eyes went wide. His lips parted and his whole posture changed, slipping from Radu’s usual stiffness into something that looked much more like Sunny’s loose stance.
He looked stunned to see her, but not angry.
He looked... delighted.
Hannah looked automatically toward Sunny only to find that Sunny had turned away from Cara. He was looking back and forth between Hannah and Radu. Sunny’s expression started out confused and then turned every bit as surprised and happy as Radu’s.
Hannah felt a strange butterfly-fluttering in her stomach that wasn’t just nervousness, and wasn’t just the awareness of how intensely gorgeous the twins both were. It felt like more than that, like...
“We were just saying how funny it was that you’d never met.”
Hannah jerked her gaze away from Sunny to see Gus walking over. He stopped by his desk, slipping an arm around Cara and frowning a little as he looked back and forth between his brothers.
“Yeah,” Sunny said, his voice sounding oddly strained. “It’s funny.”
Hannah looked back to find that he had moved to stand by Radu, reaching out to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. The twins’ eyes were locked on each other, looking the strange reverse of their usual demeanors. Radu still looked stunningly happy about something, while Sunny looked concerned and hesitant.
It occurred to Hannah that, for as much as people talked about how inseparable they were, she didn’t think she’d ever seen them together. The silent communication between them was almost visible.
Then they both turned to look at her at the same time, and the butterflies in Hannah’s stomach vanished, replaced by a sudden crashing certainty. Yes. This is right.
With that inexplicable thought came a blaze of heat—not just her face getting flushed, but her whole body. She’d known how attractive each of the twins was, but together...
“Well,” Gus said, sounding heartily amu
sed.
Hannah shook off her daze and looked at her boss.
“I’m sure the three of you have a lot to talk about,” Gus said. “You know, because you and Radu will be working together.”
Hannah blinked rapidly, trying to focus on what Gus was saying.
“Please,” Radu said, with something shockingly close to desperation.
Hannah looked back at him. Sunny had walked over to the window and stood with his back to everyone, looking out.
Hannah still felt the pull toward both Radu and Sunny, but it was a little less overwhelming now that she could look at just one of them at a time.
“Please, I need you to stay.”
Radu was walking over to her, reaching out his hands. The usual stiffness of his posture was gone, and he wasn’t frowning at all. He looked hopeful.
“I don’t know anything about being mayor,” he said. “I’m sure I can do it, but we both know you’re the one who’s been running the town since Gus was elected—”
“Hey,” Gus said mildly.
Hannah looked over at him and saw Radu do the same in her peripheral vision. She had a feeling they were both giving Gus the same skeptical look. Cara was giving him one too, although hers was very fond.
“I helped,” Gus said with a shrug and a genial smile.
“I’ll help more,” Radu said firmly.
It sounded like a promise. Hannah looked back at him. He was still holding out his hands to her, palm up, and she rested one hand lightly on his as she nodded.
“Say something,” Sunny said.
Hannah looked over at him and felt that pull again. Not as strong this time, but something about touching Radu while she looked at Sunny just felt right. She knew instinctively that she would feel the same if she were standing at the window with Sunny, looking at Radu.
She knew it would feel even better if Sunny weren’t so far away.
Sunny smiled, but the stunned look was gone, and what was left was something warm and easy.
“Put him out of his misery,” Sunny prompted. “Say it out loud.”