Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend: An Enemies To Lovers Romance (The Sweet Twins Collection)

Chapter One

Hannah

I hear myself gasp.

As Chris walks into my new CPA office, I’m totally unprepared for the shivers of desire that go through me, causing me to flush and stammer as I greet him.

I’ve known him for years as my brother’s best friend. I never thought I’d actually be attracted to him. My eyes feel glued to his slightly open lips until my gaze wanders down his body over his broad shoulders and achingly smooth skin.

I swallow hard, embarrassed to find that I’m literally salivating. I glance up at Chris’ eyes and think that maybe I see him lick his lips for half a second before he meets my stare.

“Are you okay?” my brother, Tyler, asks me, trailing behind Chris with a drink carrier of coffee cups in his hand. He ducks under Chris’ arm to get inside the office.

“Did you have to hold the door like that, you monkey?” Tyler asks him, grimacing as he sets the drinks down on my desk.

“I’m – I’m fine,” I tell him, tapping the bottom of my pen against my desk as I try to make myself look away from Chris. Something about the lighting, maybe, or the fact that his tank top is stretched snugly across his torso and is practically a rag that barely covers his bulging, sweaty muscles – I seem powerless to stop staring at him.

“What are you two doing?” I ask in an attempt to make my drifting eyes seem normal. I point at the cups in Tyler’s hand. “Did you bring me some coffee?”

“No, Ma’am, these are all for Lucy, yes, they are, yes, they are!” Tyler’s voice rises up a few octaves as he plucks the smallest cup from the carrier and removes the lid to show a cup full of whipped cream. He squats down and holds it out to Lucy, my golden retriever, who lies sleeping like an angel beside my desk. Her nose twitches as the smell of dairy makes its way into her dreams. I picture her dreaming of a cartoon scene, where she’s floating towards the animated airy pixels of the scent.

“Please, Tyler, don’t. Last time it gave her the runs,” I protest, but Lucy’s long, purple tongue is already lolling out of her mouth, her big brown eyes slowly opening like the broken shades of an old house.

“Great, thanks, Ty,” I sigh in exasperation as Tyler turns his one available palm up in a gesture of unarticulated confusion.

“Give him a break, Handy, he was so excited to bring Lucy a treat,” Chris says defensively, pulling a cup out and setting it in front of me. “Here, drink your coffee and cheer up. Jesus.”

Squinting, I squeeze the lid off the coffee to let it cool down. “Don’t call me that,” I warn through gritted teeth, lowering my hand to pull Lucy’s tail through my hand and feel her smooth, silky fur. I remember now why I’ve never liked this cocky jerk, even if he is my brother’s best friend since college.

“What? Handy? Why not? Tyler does.”

“Tyler’s my brother.”

“We’re practically siblings, too, Handy, come on. I’ve known you almost as long as he has.” Chris sits at the other side of my desk and crosses a leg over his other ankle. He winks at me and sips his drink.

“Even if that were true, which it’s not, Tyler calls me Handy. You cannotcall me Handy. You are not my brother.” I shoot daggers at Chris, my earlier lapse in judgment long-gone and replaced with the annoyance that Chris always stirs up in me.

‘Handy’ is a nickname Tyler gave me when I was just a little kid, a play off partly on my name and partly because I was always so helpful. What started as something cute, helping my dad with changing the oil in the car or mowing the lawn, turned into something else when Chris got his hands on the nickname.

Chris took something cute from my family life and started calling me Handy when I went off to college. He did it in a way that implied something rather smutty; something probably obvious to everyone except me.

It’s as if he knew I was a virgin and was embarrassed about it, probably because I walked around as if I had ‘virgin’ written on my forehead. I think he therefore thought it would be funny to imply the exact opposite.

Young and fresh and incredibly vulnerable, I fell for it a few times, thinking he was simply calling me ‘Handy’ the way my brother did.

But that was before he gave himself away one year, really laying it on thick at Thanksgiving when I brought a boy home for the holiday.

I’ve thought of him as an arrogant prick ever since and can hardly stand to be in the same room with him. I wouldn’t put up with him at all, under any circumstances, if he weren’t Tyler’s best friend.

Now, as a 25-year-old virgin, well, the nickname has only gotten progressively more ironic and painful over the years, though I have no idea if he’s aware of my virginal status or not.

I mean, he can’t be. How could he?

“What’s the difference?” he asks, smiling coyly from behind his coffee cup, revealing a dimple in his left cheek that deepens as he holds in a laugh.

“All right, all right. Chris, you’re not really helping your case here,” Tyler warns from the floor.

He’s sunk onto the floor completely and pulled Lucy’s big head into his lap, where she can lazily lap at the bottom of the cup without having to move at all.

“What case? What are you two talking about?” I look from Tyler to Chris and see Chris slouch a little.

I can feel my green eyes sparkling with excitement as I realize that Chris needs something from me.

He sees my realization and shakes his head slightly, sighing.

“Oh, do you need financial advice, Christopher? From little ole me?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Hannah, I would never call you little,” Chris jabs. I roll my eyes.

Maybe that insult would have worked in high school when I was incredibly insecure, but now at 25, I know that being tall is beautiful and most women envy me my stature.

Of course, when I am trying on jeans in a department store fitting room and subsequently piling them back into the sales woman’s arms because they don’t go down past my ankles, I usually hear the refrain about how men simply love tall women.

“And a redhead to boot,” they gush. “You must be beating them off with a stick!”

I’m always tempted to ask where these men are, but I just smile and thank them.

Most girls are told the same lie I was told as a kid: that maybe I was being bullied now, but just wait! I’d grow into a beautiful woman and men would be all over me!

Yeah, right. Well, I’m still waiting.

“Great, well, how about you both get the fuck out of here so I can get some work done? You know, some people in Los Angeles actually have need of my financial acumen and want my advice.

“You may not believe that, but I do have a lot of work to do and I am just starting to build this business, so…it was nice catching up with you as always but I’ve gotta get back to work.” I stand up to emphasize my point, waving my hands in an upward motion towards Chris.

“Hey, I make money! I’m an orthopedic surgeon, for heaven’s sake. And I take your advice a lot, so don’t give me that.”

Tyler protests from the floor, laughing as I shoo Chris toward the door and close it, leaving him standing outside.

“Come on, Ty. Play time’s over. I’ve got a mountain of work here.”

“Come on, let him in!” he laughs.

In response, Lucy pricks her ears back and forth.

“Sorry,” he tells her, quieting down. Lucy lifts her large head and whines while looking at Chris through the window.

“Let him in. He needs your help. Please, Handy?” he implores.

I stand with my hands on my hips, still in front of the door but facing Tyler, who pulls Lucy’s long, floppy ears through his hands.

I sigh and turn to face the mirrored door. Chris checks his hair in the two way mirror, and I roll my eyes.

“Fine.” I open the door and let Chris back in.

“Christopher,” I begin as he straightens and drops his hands to his sides.

“Hannah,” Chris responds in an equally serious tone.

“I will let you in and help you if you apologize, beg for my help, tell me you’ve always been jealous of me —”

“—done,” he says, pushing his way further into the office.

I stop him before he can come in, “and promise to never call me Handy again.”

Chris twists his lips which, mere moments ago, I had felt were juicy and luscious, and cocks his head at me, his stare boring through me with his bright blue eyes.

“If that’s really what you want.”

“It is. Obviously.”

“End of an era,” he sighs. He swivels himself around and crouches down on one knee.

“Hannah, I am deeply sorry for hurting you and acting the way I have. I guess I’m just really insensitive.”

He shrugs, looking down at the clay tile floor.

“And hell, I guess I am a little jealous of you. You’re so good with numbers,” he looks up at me and grips my hand, sending an electric jolt through my body that I ignore as he continues, “And all I’m good at is, well, toning my body – and helping others tone theirs, of course.”

He looks up at me from under his ridiculously long eyelashes. I tap my toes, and gesture for him to continue.

“But that’s no excuse, and I know that. At the end of the day, I really, really need your help. Will you do me the honor of helping me, even though I don’t deserve it? Please…Hannah?”

I glance over at Tyler, who shrugs from the floor. Good natured Tyler, who never seems to see the bad in anyone, even Chris. I peel my hand out of his.

“Sure.” I curl my lip and sit back down behind my desk. “But not for free. You can afford me and I’m not letting you off cheap.”

I wave my hand at the seat he had been sitting in earlier and pull out a notebook, a file of contracts, and a calculator. “So, Mr. Stephens, let’s talk money.”