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?

“Why do you think he made that suggestion? I mean, to take out the policy and make him the beneficiary.”

“Well, it was his idea to take out the policy because I’m not getting any younger, so it was a good idea to get life insurance now while there were no issues.”

“Okay, that actually makes sense. But no one is depending on you, Mom. Dad and I are self-supporting. When there’s no one depending on you, there’s no reason to take out insurance on your life.”

“Well, it made sense to me. I could get the policy now, and it’s amazing how cheap term life is from some companies.”

“So you decided to get the policy, and he wanted you to make him the beneficiary?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no, that was my idea.”

I arched my eyebrows. Her idea? “Yes. He suggested you, Jade. Or your father.”

“Then why didn’t you choose one of us?”

“I did. I chose you. But then I started thinking that the one rock in my life for the last several months had been Nico.”

“The last several months? You named a man your beneficiary when you’d only known him a few months? Not even a year?”

“Well, yes. After I chose you, Nico and I talked about the future. He told me he loved me and that he planned for us to live our lives together, and that maybe, since we were going to be married anyway, it might make more sense to make him the beneficiary. Then we wouldn’t have to change it later.”

“A-ha. So it was his idea after all.”

“Oh, no. It was my decision.”

And once again, my mother had been played by a man. It wasn’t bad enough that her second husband had sucked her dry of all of her life savings. Now this lying jerk had come to suck the life out of her, literally. But I couldn’t press it right now. She was clearly getting tired.

“All right. I understand.” I didn’t, but what good would it do to let her know that? “I think we’ve talked enough. You need some rest.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m so sorry, Jade. For everything. When Nico comes back, he’ll explain it all to you.”

When Nico comes back. My poor mother. Still as naïve as the day she was born.

“I’m sure he will. Don’t worry about it, Mom. Right now, all you have to worry about is getting rest so you can heal properly.”

When she had drifted off to sleep, I went back out to the waiting area and told my father about our conversation.

“He’s a slippery fellow, that Nico, huh?” my father said.

“He seems to be. I wish she could see him for what he is.”

“When he doesn’t come back, she’ll have no choice but to see it.”

“I just don’t understand.”

“Well, your mother has two faults. The first one is that she is as vain as they come.”

I let out a laugh. “Really? Hadn’t noticed that.”

“Second one is that she has a hard time seeing people for who they really are. It happened with that second husband of hers, and now it’s clearly happening with this Nico. You see, they both showered her with affection, compliments, gifts, and she falls for it every time. That’s why she and I never worked.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s no doubt Brooke is beautiful. She was a knockout when I met her, Jade. Amazing. But I saw beneath her looks. I knew she wasn’t perfect, and I loved her anyway. I never made her flaws any secret. But she didn’t want to be a real person in my eyes. She wanted to be a princess, a beautiful woman who had no flaws—she wanted to be Brooke Bailey, supermodel—and that’s how she wanted me to feel about her.”

“But you loved her.”

“I did. I loved her. Flaws and all. But she couldn’t accept that I saw her flaws.”

“Still, I feel bad that you couldn’t be with the woman you loved, especially when she wanted you back.”

“We’ve been over that before, sweetie. You were my priority then. You’re still my priority now. See? Your mother had her priorities all screwed up. Clearly, she still does.”

“She did tell me she wanted to try again with me. And she admitted she had taken a lot of things for granted in her life.”

My father nodded. “It’s all a step in the right direction, that’s for sure. A brush with death has a way of making people see what they’ve previously been blind to.”

“If only she could see Nico for who he really is.”

“She will, sweetie. Eventually. But she has to figure that out for herself. Neither you nor I will be able to convince her of it.”

I sighed. As usual, my father was right. The man had common sense to a fault.

“You know, I wish you could’ve known your mother when she was younger. She was so full of life. She wanted the world on a platter, and she thought she had it for a while. But fame and fortune are fleeting things, Jade. What’s important is people. The people who love us, who need us, who make us feel emotion. That’s what’s important in life.”