📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
We Will Love Again – Episode 04
Noah’s confession lingered in the television studio. “In my most trying times, I do often think about the girl I used to love.” For a moment, the billionaire disappeared behind the memory of the young man who had once believed love would be enough.
The interviewer’s expression softened. “That’s so sweet. Did her love give you strength?” She expected a romantic answer, perhaps a tribute to the woman who had supported an extraordinary man before the world knew his name.
Noah gave a humorless smile. “No. It was the opposite, actually.” The admission shifted the mood, and the interviewer leaned closer as he continued. “She dumped me and told me to stop wasting her time.”
He described the luxury car without naming the woman inside it. “Then she rode off with some trust-fund baby, and I’ve never seen her again.” Five years had polished the story into something he could say aloud, but time had not removed its edge.
At Crazy Maple Studio, Alaina heard every word. Her coworkers remained absorbed in the interview, never imagining the unfortunate woman in Noah’s story was sitting within reach. She kept her attention fixed on her desk, afraid her face would betray her.
“Well, if she’s watching this now, she must be regretting her decision,” the interviewer said. The playful remark invited the audience to enjoy a perfect reversal of fortune: the poor boy had become a billionaire, and the woman who rejected him had lost everything.
Alaina did not regret giving him freedom. She regretted the wound required to make him take it. Noah had reached heights even his mother might not have imagined, yet the bitterness in his voice proved that success had not healed what Alaina broke.
“Would you ever take her back?” the interviewer asked. The question sounded casual, but to Alaina it became the only sound in the room. Her fingers hovered uselessly above the keyboard.
Noah did not need time to consider his answer. “I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.” His tone was cool enough to extinguish any fantasy of reconciliation before it began.
Alaina lowered her eyes. She had no right to be hurt. She had designed his hatred carefully, choosing every insult so he would never search for her. Hearing that her plan had succeeded should have brought relief.
“But I do need to thank her,” Noah continued, “because she taught me some very valuable life lessons.” A trace of steel entered his voice. “Now I know the only person you can count on in this world is yourself.”
The interviewer called his words wisdom and moved toward questions about his future. Alaina heard something else: the cost of what she had done. She had not merely ended their engagement. She had taught a loving man to distrust love itself.
Her coworkers burst into commentary as the interview shifted topics. “I wonder who the dumb bitch was that left Noah Preston,” one said. “I would die of regret.”
The other could not stop admiring him. “He’s so hot. I’d be with him even if he had no money. No money at all.” Their easy declarations turned Alaina’s private grief into office entertainment.
Then one of them glanced toward her. “Wait. Alaina, didn’t you go to UMCP? The same school as Noah Preston?” The question struck too close, and Alaina felt the room narrow around her.
She forced herself not to look at the screen. “Never met him in my life.” The lie came more quietly than the ones she had told Noah, but it hurt with the same familiar precision.
Her coworker laughed before anyone could examine the answer. “Why would a loser like Alaina know someone like Noah Preston? She probably only ever hung out with nerds.” The insult spared Alaina from suspicion while reminding her exactly where she stood now.
She gathered her things with hands she struggled to keep steady. “I can’t concentrate on my work with you two gossiping. I’m leaving.” Their surprised exclamations followed her, but she refused to turn around.
Outside the office, Alaina finally released the breath trapped in her chest. Five years had passed, Los Angeles held millions of people, and Noah belonged to a world that would never intersect with hers. She repeated those facts until they almost sounded safe.
Back in the studio, Noah smoothly discussed his future while an old name remained unspoken behind every answer. Neither he nor Alaina knew that the distance protecting them was already collapsing—and that the company she had just walked out of was about to draw him straight to her.
