She nodded. “That sounds good. Just let me text my dad.”
She sent the message letting him know she was taking a nap and let Garrett lead her to the spacious bedroom.
She was dreading seeing some of her cousins and nosy aunts from her mom’s side of the family, and Garrett was able to sense her apprehension. His solution was to strip her naked and spend an hour worshiping her body with his mouth and hands. By her third orgasm she couldn’t hold her eyes open and he snuggled her close against his chest where she drifted to sleep.
• • •
Garrett could feel the tension rolling off Isabelle in waves as they followed the girls and her dad to the beach that evening. Henry hadn’t been feeling up to a trip to the beach, so he stayed behind.
“You seem tense, Doll. Did I not give you enough orgasms to relax you?” he asked as they lagged behind the others.
She bumped her hip into his and gave him her adorable embarrassed smile. “Stop. I always get tense at family reunions. They don’t exactly care for my dad but invite him out of obligation and a desire to see me and the girls. Henry and some of my dad’s other family usually show up just to spite them.”
“I thought you said this was a fun event.”
She laughed. “It is. I just have some aunts on mom’s side of the family who don’t appreciate that she married Daddy and ran off to Colorado with him. In their minds, that’s why we’re poor. Daddy didn’t do a good enough job providing for us.”
There was a time he might have had the same thought about Jacob Alvarado, but after learning so much about Isabelle and her life, he understood that some things went beyond being anyone’s fault. Life had dealt some hard blows to her family including the death of her mother, and nobody could have predicted that.
Just then, Catarina sprinted ahead and hugged a boy who looked to be her age.
“Cousin of hers?” Garrett asked.
Isabelle nodded. “Best of friends, despite the distance between them. The girls are a big reason we come to these things. We want them to know their cousins. I’ll enjoy spending time with some of my cousins at the party tomorrow night.”
Beside him, he felt her take a deep breath as they approached the small crowd that was gathering.
“Isabelle,” a woman shouted. She looked oddly familiar, but Garrett couldn’t place her.
Isabelle gave a tight smile and waved. “That would be my mom’s oldest sister.”
The woman jogged over to them and wrapped Isabelle in a hug before she stepped back and looked Garrett up and down. “This is the last place I expected to see you again,” she said.
Isabelle stared at him. “You two know each other?” she asked.
The woman batted a hand. “I doubt he remembers me. I was a fundraising liaison for a campaign he consulted on a few years back.”
Garrett let his memory run through the various campaigns he’d assisted on. “Senator Newman?” he asked a moment later.
“That’s the one. Sandy Lopez, pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Oliver.”
The name tripped his memory and he realized. Isabelle’s mom’s side of the family was loaded. Why the hell was this woman letting her sister’s kids live in poverty in Colorado? He suddenly felt the urge to smack the woman and take Isabelle back to the pool house. Why had she hidden this part of her family from him?
He did his best to keep a friendly smile plastered on his face.
“Izzy!” someone shouted from a few yards away. Isabelle turned and waved at the bubbly woman heading her way. She scooped her into a hug and the two women swayed in an embrace for several minutes.
Sandy smiled up at Garrett. “What’s your business with our Izzy?” she asked as they both watched Isabelle and what Garrett assumed was a cousin.
“Isabelle and I have been seeing each other for some time now.”
“Oh, how cute. We all call her Izzy, it’s what she prefers. How did you two meet? She seems a little…”
“Out of my league? She absolutely is. I don’t know how I got so lucky to meet such a wonderful girl as Isabelle.”
He put emphasis on her name and flashed her a wicked smile that had the older woman simpering.
Isabelle turned in time to see it and he held his hand out to her. “You should introduce me to more of your family, Doll.”
