We Will Love Again – Episode 15
Noah picked up the chain before Alaina could reach it. The small diamond rested against his palm, unchanged from the day he had saved every spare dollar to buy it.
He knew the slight imperfection in the band and the setting he had chosen after visiting three stores. There could be no mistake. “Why do you have this?”
Alaina’s face lost its color. After throwing the ring onto the pavement, she had asked Peter to return for it. For five years, she had carried it where no one could see.
“Give it back.” She reached for the chain, but Noah closed his hand around it. The gesture trapped more than jewelry between them.
“You said it was cheap.” His voice dropped. “You said you never wanted to wear it again.”
“I’m not wearing it.” The technical truth sounded feeble. She had kept the ring near her heart, which meant far more than placing it on her finger.
Noah searched her expression. “Did Peter retrieve it for you?” The pieces of that day shifted, refusing to return to their old positions.
Alaina said nothing. Any explanation would lead to the arrangement, the hospital, and Mrs. Preston. Silence was the only promise she still knew how to keep.
“Answer me.” Noah had negotiated with governments and defeated executives who underestimated him, yet this quiet woman could still make him feel like a desperate twenty-two-year-old.
“Some things are difficult to throw away,” Alaina said at last. The words escaped with more honesty than she intended.
His fingers tightened around the ring. “People don’t keep reminders of men they despise.”
“And successful men don’t spend five years planning revenge against women they’ve forgotten.” Her reply struck both of them silent.
For one unguarded moment, anger fell away. Noah saw the exhaustion beneath her defenses; Alaina saw the wound beneath his fortune. The distance between them felt fragile enough to cross.
His hand rose almost without permission, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. Alaina stopped breathing. The touch carried the tenderness of their old life, made dangerous by everything unresolved.
Noah drew back first. “Tell me the truth about that day.” It was no longer an accusation. It was a demand shaped by the hope he did not want to possess.
Alaina imagined telling him that his mother had revealed Oxford and Harvard beside a hospital bed. She imagined his anger, his guilt, and the possibility of tearing apart the only family he had left.
“I already told you the truth,” she lied. The pain in her eyes betrayed the words before they finished leaving her mouth.
Noah returned the ring, but his expression had changed. “No. You told me a story. I was too broken to question it.”
Alaina gathered the rest of her belongings and moved toward the door. “Goodnight, Mr. Preston.” She needed to escape before he discovered how thin her defenses had become.
The elevator closed between them, but Noah no longer saw a woman who had traded love for money. He looked down at the empty place where the ring had rested in his hand and made a silent promise: whatever Alaina Campbell had hidden for five years, he was going to uncover it.
