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Reuben shakes his head. "We're waiting for Evie's sister."
"Sister?" I've known John and Caroline for years, and I'm positive they've never mentioned a second daughter. They brag about Evie's accomplishments constantly, to the point of it being a little obnoxious, but whatever internal speculation I have about the unknown Bradley sister dies immediately when my future daughter-in-law looks past my right shoulder and brightens.
"Isobel!"
No. No way. It couldn't be her-
"Hey, everyone."
Even before I turn, I know who I'll see standing behind me. Her voice is softer, less confident than on the shuttle, but it raises the same prickle of awareness up my spine. I'm prepared, but I still feel an agonizing stab of disappointment when I turn and see Isobel moving toward me. She's dressed in a dark blue dress that whispers over her curves like the ocean visible in the distance, and her hair is loose around her slim shoulders. She looks older, more mature, and yet the sparkle of life behind her beautiful face is dulled now.
She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
Her steps falter when her eyes meet mine, a flicker of shock registering across her face before it returns to smooth impassivity so quickly I might have imagined it.
"Hello, darling. So glad you made it." Caroline breezes by me to kiss Isobel's cheek with the same perfunctory familiarity she just showed me.
"Hi, Mom. Dad." Her eyes move to John, who moves forward to give her a brief one-armed hug. "How, uh," Her eyes flick to me, then back to her sister, a dull flush rising over her cheeks. "How was everyone's flight?"
"Oh, easy," Evie says as she takes her turn hugging her sister. Even side by side, I still can't see much of a resemblance between the two. Their eyes are the same shape and color, but Evie has their mother's tall, curvy physique and olive-skinned complection, whereas Isobel is willowy and pale. And younger. Isobel is younger.
Christ. She's my future daughter-in-law'slittle sister, and I've been fantasizing all day about how she'd look on her knees, those beautiful lips wrapped around my cock while I fuck her mouth.
"Isobel, this is my father, Doctor Judah Hale," Reuben tells her, and I feel almost dizzy when Isobel looks back at me with a polite, guarded smile still in place.
"We've met," I reply before I can think better of it, and it's like a punch to the gut when I see Isobel's wince. Is she embarrassed she flirted with me or embarrassed to be found out by her family? The latter.I hope. "Briefly. On the airport shuttle. I think we were on the same connecting flight."
Evie brightens. "Oh, what a coincidence! Have you heard from Harvard yet, Isobel?" She turns her eyes to me, "Isobel is going to be at Harvard Med in the fall."
"Not yet," Isobel replies quietly, looking like she would rather be anywhere but here.
I'm not sure why the fact she's trying to be a physician is so surprising to me, but I'm struggling to reconcile the woman who flirted with me on the shuttle was born into this family. Even the way she holds herself is so different than Caroline, Evie, or John, and it couldn't be clearer from their less-than-warm welcome that they aren't close. I want to ask her why she's applying and what's drawing her to medicine, butit's none of my business.
She's off-limits now. I need to back off and do my best to put this behind me.
Panting after a woman half my age was dubious enough, but Evie's sister? Unthinkable.
Chapter Three
Isobel
IfIneededanymore evidence that there is something seriously wrong with me, this shit-show is pretty convincing.
I've gottencloseto having sex before, with several perfectly nice boyfriends who did their best to ensure I enjoyed myself. I've masturbated too, with my fingers, with the little pink vibrator I ordered online, watching porn, reading filthy books, and all I got wasnothing. No sparks, no earth-shattering orgasm, no heavenly angels singing from above. Just me laying amidst tangled sheets, feeling more frustrated and pent up than when it began.
I haven't bothered with any of it in a long time.
How Judah made me feel just by holding my hand is unprecedented. By the time we got off the shuttle, I'd been reduced to a fluttery, hot mess, torn between jumping his bones in the nearest public restroom and running away as fast as I could.
I still had yet to decide by the time I was supposed to meet everyone for dinner and ended up being late because I spent an extra fifteen minutes getting readyjust in caseI ran into him. He dropped his phone so hard the screen broke at the sight of gross, international air travel gremlin, me. What would he do if he saw me when I was actually trying?
There might have been some fantasies of being dragged back to his place and fucked on every flat surface instead of going to dinner with my family. Because that thing I've always had to do, talk myself into being attracted to someone…. I don't have to do that with him. Not even a little bit.
Of course, the first time I feel a flicker of that heat that gets so much hype, it's directed toward the most inappropriate man possible.
I stand there, listening to them all make small talk about Reuben and Evie's hospital and the department head, who they all apparently can't stand. I have nothing to contribute to this discussion, just like most of the conversations my family has in my presence.
Mom eventually suggests we sit and leads the way over to our table, she, Dad, and me on one side, Judah, Evie, and Reuben on the other. Unhelpfully, Judah takes the seat right across from me, and I bury my face in the menu, trying to give myself a chance to calm the hell down.
