She took him through to the kitchen. It was one of the few rooms still fully furnished, for which Lorelei was silently grateful. But unfortunately, like her bedroom, it was a shambles. The caterers had taken away most of their debris, but there were still empty bottles and plates and overturned furniture.
‘I had a party last night,’ she felt obliged to explain. She didn’t want him to think she lived in squalor.
‘I’m guessing that’s pretty standard for you.’
It was. It was standard for her role with The Aviary. ‘Not at all,’ she replied smoothly. ‘I’m quite the homebody.’
He gave her a sceptical look. ‘Yeah, the party comes to you.’
Lorelei didn’t know why but there was an edge to what Nash was saying that had her cooling. He should try entertaining eighty people on the budget The Aviary Foundation gave her.
Nash was surveying the room. He wandered over to the counter. Lorelei followed his long muscled back with her eyes.
‘Coffee pot?’
‘My, my—you are domestic.’
Nash shrugged. He had a housekeeping service at all his homes, which made it unnecessary for him to ever approach a kitchen, but he’d grown up regular. As regular as a kid with a drunk for a father and only an older brother to care for him. He’d learned young how to wash his own dishes and scrub a floor and unplug a drainpipe.
Not to mention how to get himself off to school.
‘Yeah, I’m a regular boy scout.’
He looked around. Lorelei had a kitchen and a half. Although he doubted she ever spent any quality time with a dishmop.
Not a domestic bone in that lithe, lovely body, he thought with satisfaction.
Lorelei began opening cupboards, retrieving ground coffee beans, switching on the kettle, pulling out the coffee maker.
‘Cups?’ he asked.
Lorelei indicated one of the cupboards.
‘You’re very practised at this,’ she said.
He appraised her. ‘I know how to make a cup of coffee.’
‘Your maman brought you up right.’
‘Mum walked out when I was nine.’
Nash caught himself. Where in the hell had that come from?
Lorelei’s gaze moved to his. ‘Parents,’ she said carefully. ‘They do muck us up.’
‘Yeah.’
Lorelei noticed he spoke matter-of-factly, but there were hard emotions playing over his face and she kept her attention on the job at hand.
Unavoidably, she began thinking about her own maman—Britt, who had flickered in and out of her life. The mother she’d only known fractionally as a child, on those rare visits to New York and her apartment high above Central Park. A glorious blonde Valkyrie who sang to her Swedish folk songs and let her play dress-up in the ateliers of the best couturiers in Paris and Rome; a mother of sorts, who’d stalked the catwalks with Lorelei sitting front and centre at the shows, dressed up like a little doll to be cooed over by her glamorous, sweet-smelling friends. A mother who had been no mother at all, and was now a sort of friend she spoke to irregularly.
‘I gather someone in your family owns a bank, given the real estate you’re sitting on.’ Nash was leaning back against the counter, muscular arms folded across his chest, displaying the tail of the dragon tattoo down his left arm.
‘Not a bank.’ Lorelei repressed a wry smile. If only. ‘This house belonged to my grandpère. He had a successful import business. When he died it passed to my grandmaman, Antoinette St James, and I inherited it on her death.’
‘I gather you were close? She left you her house.’
Lorelei wanted to say, It’s complicated. ‘She looked after me. Taught me right from wrong. Gave me standards.’
‘And a house?’
‘Oui.’ She sighed. A white elephant.
‘I imagine it’s a burden, given its size?’
He understood. It didn’t surprise her as much as it ought. He gave the impression of being quietly observant. What had Simone said? Monosyllabic? She imagined this was as chatty as Nash got, and it was quite a compliment to her.
She gestured at the ceiling. ‘You don’t need to be kind. It’s clearly falling down around my ears.’
She waited for him to ask her why she didn’t sell it. It was the obvious question.