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I smiled. “You’re looking so much better. Your face is healing nicely.”
“But there will be scars.”
I wasn’t about to sugarcoat things anymore. She was out of danger. “Yes, there will be scars. But you know? Scars aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Scars show that you’ve been through life. That you went through hell and came back kicking. Scars are a good thing.”
“I made my living on my beauty, Jade. I was still a bankable model. Sure, I wasn’t making the kind of money I did when I was young, but I was doing okay. I was living check to check, but I was at least making something.”
“Who says it’s over?”
“Darling, look at me.”
“I am looking at you, Mom. I see a strong and beautiful woman whose life is not nearly over. So stop talking like it is.”
“No. I’ve taken everything for granted. I took for granted that I would always be beautiful, and then I started to get older. I started to get laugh lines around my eyes, a few age spots here and there. Nothing good makeup couldn’t cover. But now? I have scars from all these lacerations on my face. I’m not sure my eye will ever look normal again.”
“Mom—”
“No, let me finish. I always took it for granted. And not just my looks, but people. You, your father. And now Nico.”
My hackles rose. Why did she have to mention that jerk? I couldn’t tell her that we thought he might’ve tried to have her killed to collect insurance money. But maybe I could find out why she had taken out the policy in the first place.
“Mom, speaking of Nico, tell me about this insurance policy you took out.”
“You mean the life insurance policy?”
“Yeah. If you were going to take out a life insurance policy, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to designate your next of kin as beneficiary?”
“You mean you think you should have been the beneficiary?”
Crap. I hadn’t meant for that to sound the way it sounded. “No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, yeah, it’s what I mean, but I’m not after any money from you. But why would you name a boyfriend? He wasn’t even your fiancé.”
“I figured we’d be married eventually.”
“I didn’t know you were planning to marry again.”
She sighed. “For a long time I never thought I would. After that idiot Neal Harmon stole all my money, and then when your father refused to take me back after that. But Nico was different.”
“Really? How was he different?”
“He wasn’t after my money. After all, I didn’t have any. At least not much, anyway.”
“Dad was never after money.”
“Oh, I know that. But he didn’t want me.”
“That was ten years ago. What made you decide that Nico might be worth marrying?”
“He was very good to me. He bought me presents, flowers. He made me feel like I was important to him.”
“So you decided to take out an insurance policy and named him as beneficiary because he gave you flowers?” I shook my head.
“Actually, the policy was his idea.”
Why was I not surprised? “Why would that be his idea? Is there something you’re not telling me? Is your health bad?”
“Of course not, silly. If my health were bad, I wouldn’t have been able to get the policy in the first place.”
She had me there. Frankly, there was only one reason why Nico would’ve wanted to take out the insurance policy on my mother—so that he could eventually benefit from it. How could I get her to see that? And in her fragile state, did I even want to?
