Page 147 of Handsome Devil

“Yes. My aunt has a chronic illness.”

Dread made way for panic. If this was legitimate, what else did this Lina woman find out?

“Gia, your mother has been ready to leave for months now,” Lina said quietly. “She stayed because of you.”

“What made her change her mind?” I sniffled. “To disconnect her soul from her body?”

“She said things are different now.” Lina’s eyes darted to Tate. “One of the things she mentioned was that she found out you had a husband. She approves of him. She said he takes care of you. She trusts him to pick up the pieces she’ll leave behind.”

My face heated. I still didn’t know what to believe. This could all be a setup by Tate.

“You think I’m a fraud, don’t you?” Lina studied me with a small, knowing smile. She didn’t seem upset by her own observation.

“I’m more of a science girl.” I smiled apologetically. “Numbers. Physics. That sort of thing. Mum was the spiritual one.”

“Ah yes.” Lina smiled. “She mentioned that. In fact, she told me you would probably be very skeptical. Which was why she told me to tell you…” She looked down at her hands. “Al mal tiempo, buena cara.”

To bad weather, a good face.

An expression my mother often used when life was difficult. The general meaning was to stay positive. To have hope.

Just survive this, and all will be well.

My heart flapped in my chest like a fish out of water.

I believed Lina. I didn’t know who she was talking to really. Maybe her own intuition. But I found my mother in that conversation.

Scooting forward on the couch, I gasped. “Why is she still clinging to life then? Obviously, she saw that I’m married and taken care of.”

“Well, of course, she doesn’t want to die in this drab robe!” Lina threw a hand in Mum’s general direction, her expression scandalized. “She wants to go fashionably. To die the way she lived. She gave me instructions. Write this down.”

She snapped her fingers, and I sprang into action, taking out my phone and opening my notepad.

“She wants to go a certain way. And by the way, she ishorrifiedthat you’ve let so many strangers see her looking like this.” Lina clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “She wants you to put her in the asymmetric Zimmermann organza silk dress, the one with the Havana, and the buckled silk Manolo Blahniks.”

I typed her instructions fast. I was now 100 percent sure this wasn’t a setup. Mumlovedpairing the two together. They were the same shade of rose gold.

“What else?” I looked up from my phone.

“She wants you to color her hair. She doesn’t want any grays when she passes on to the next life, and for heaven’s sake, style it. Her hair is frizzy from all the times you brushed it!”

Laughter burst out of me, and my eyes brimmed with tears. “Okay. Got that down. No more brushing. What else?”

“Full face of makeup, of course.”

“What shade of lipstick?” I asked. Mum had about twenty of them, all a different hue of red.

“Gucci’s ruby.”

I nodded. “Good choice. Anything else?”

“That’s mostly it.” Lina tapped her lower lip with a French-manicured fingernail. “She wants this to happen sooner rather than later. She’s ready, Gia. I think she’s been ready for longer than you can imagine. She pushed through for you. But you are okay now. You have someone to take care of you.” Her eyes crinkled, sweeping to Tate. “Someone who would go to great lengths for you.”

Tate’s expression was impenetrable. He stared forward rigidly, like a queen’s guard.

The weight of her words pressed like a boot against my solar plexus.

Could someone broken put another person together?