“Spill,” she said calmly.
“What?”
“You’re dying to tell me about your life.”
“Pretty boring life compared to yours.”
Lilit waved her hand. “Nonsense. You’re young, beautiful, talented, and inherited my mother’s big ass. Somebody with those attributes always has something going on.”
“How much of this will get back to my parents?”
Lilit balked. “I don’t tell those nerds anything. I’ll make you a deal. You tell me about what’s been going on, and I’ll confirm or deny any rumors you’ve heard about me.”
It was a tempting offer. There were so many rumors about Lilit in the family, and I was dying to know more about my mysterious aunt.
“Okay. Well, you know I’ve been living with my best friend, Elspeth, part-time. Her mother recently passed from cancer, so I was helping her take care of things this past year.”
She raised her palms to make me pause. “Never go back, Nairie.”
“But how do I do that?”
Lilit dunked a cookie in her tea and smiled fondly. “You stand your ground. You let your father yell all he wants—he’s good at that. You let your mother shed her tears—it’s her favorite pastime. And you just ride it out. They’ll come around, eventually.”
“Did they come around when you left?”
“You’re their daughter. It’s different.”
I thought over what she said and watched a silver strand of her hair blow in the breeze. “Is it true you met Harrison Ford in a café in Venice and that he fell madly inlove with you?”
Lilit grinned. “It was a short-lived affair.”
My mouth gaped.
“What’s going on with your art?”
I shifted in my chair and took a sip of tea. “I’m entering this illustrating competition on Instagram, and I’m taking a figure drawing class now. I didn’t tell Mom or Baba about that either.”
“Figure drawing, you say? So I assume there are nude models in this class?”
I chuckled. “Yes.”
Lilit winked. “There’s nothing like admiring the human form. I myself posed for some of the shrubs out front.”
I choked on my tea and composed myself.
I hesitated to share this next part, but I wanted Lilit to know I wasn’t a complete bore. “I actually hooked up with one of the models.”
Lilit threw her head back on a laugh and clapped. “Well done.”
“Yeah, he’s very hot but very, very dumb. And kind of an asshole.”
“They almost always are. Why was he an asshole?”
“He didn’t take our breakup well, but my friend William punched his lights out.”
“And you thought your life was boring.”
I scooted closer to her in my chair. “Did a sheik really give you all that money?”
