Page 47 of Heartache & Playdates
I walked up the steps to Nonna’s house with a renewed determination to let Maddox go. Once and for all.
“Nonna! I’m back!” I called out as I dropped off my bag on the table by the door and stepped out of my shoes.
“In the sunroom!” she yelled.
As I made my way to the back of the house, my nostrils tickled with the woodsy, masculine scent that was pure Maddox.
I knew then, my mind was playing tricks on me. It was causing my olfactory nerves to lie and think I smelled him. I was going to be like one of those people in movies that see their dead loved ones and talk to them, except Maddox was alive and well and instead of seeing him, I was smelling him.
That was seriously pathetic.
So much for my attempt at closing the Maddox Cruz chapter in my life.
As I walked out onto the covered back porch, I saw a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the table in front of Nonna’s rocking chair.
Trent. He must have sent them before I responded that I wasn’t going to fly back to go to the partner’s dinner with him. Either that, or he was trying to convince me to go.
“Beautiful, huh?” Nonna asked.
“Yes, they are.” I just wished I actually liked flowers.
She smiled from ear to ear. “I had a visitor today.”
“You did?”
I assumed that it was one of the ladies that she played mahjong with.
“A gentleman.”
“Oh!” I lit up as I leaned down to sniff the flowers.
At least one of us was killing it in the romance department.
“Someone from the past,” she said.
I knew that she was being deliberately coy and vague. Nonna was nothing if not dramatic. She loved a good build up and then reveal. Another thing that she and Leo had in common. The two were honestly two sides of the same coin.
“Someone from your past?” I lowered down in the chair beside her and smiled. “That sounds mysterious.”
“Not my past, Farfallina.” She leaned toward me and patted my cheek. “Yours.”
As soon as she said that, I knew who it was. Maddox had shown up here. At Nonna’s. My olfactory nerves were not playing tricks on me.
“Maddox,” I breathed.
Shit.He’d seen me. I thought he might have. I shouldn’t have cut and run when I’d seen him. I should have stayed and acted like the grown adult person I was.
“Yes, Maddox.” Nonna clapped. “And he was not alone. He come with his bambina.”
“His daughter?” He’d brought his daughter to Nonna’s. Why?
Nonna’s face lit up even brighter as she said, “Cara bellisima, Hannah.”
I felt like the walls were closing in on me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“He brought Hannah here,” I repeated.
“He must have heard I fall. He brought me these.” Nonna waved her hand at the flowers.
