We Will Love Again – Episode 20
Noah’s question held Alaina motionless. Around them, cups touched saucers and strangers continued quiet conversations, unaware that five years of deception had narrowed to a single name.
“It doesn’t matter who told me.” Her voice barely carried across the table.
“It matters to me.” Noah searched her face with an intensity that made escape impossible. “I told almost no one about Oxford.”
Peter looked toward Alaina, offering her one final chance to choose honesty. She gave a faint shake of her head. The promise she made in the hospital still governed her even now.
Noah noticed the exchange. “You both know.” He turned on Peter. “Was it you?”
“No.” Peter refused to accept blame that would preserve someone else’s manipulation. “I learned about Oxford from Alaina when she asked for my help.”
“Peter, please.” Alaina’s plea no longer sounded like a warning. It sounded like fear.
He met her eyes. “Protecting the truth hasn’t protected anyone. It only made both of you miserable.”
Noah’s anger shifted toward dread. There was one person besides him who had known the full history of Harvard, Oxford, and his determination to remain with Alaina.
“My mother.” The words left him slowly. Alaina flinched, and the smallest movement confirmed more than a confession.
He remembered Nora visiting the hospital three days before the breakup. At the time, her appearance had seemed ordinary. Now he saw the coffee errand, the private minutes she created, and Alaina’s abrupt transformation soon afterward.
“What did she say to you?” Noah asked.
Alaina’s eyes filled. “She was afraid you were giving up your future. She wasn’t wrong.”
“That isn’t an answer.” His chair scraped back as he stood. “Did she ask you to leave me?”
Alaina rose as well. “You turned down Harvard. You were prepared to reject Oxford. My mother was dying, and you would never have left while I needed you.”
“So you decided for me.” Hurt broke through his control. “You made me believe six years meant nothing because you didn’t trust me to choose my own life.”
“I trusted you too much,” she whispered. “I knew exactly what you would choose, and I couldn’t let it be me again.”
Noah wanted to condemn her, but the truth exposed his own deception. He had hidden Oxford because he intended to sacrifice it without giving Alaina a voice. They had both called control an act of love.
He left the café before rage and grief stripped away the last of his restraint. Outside, he called Aaron and issued an order that had nothing to do with Crazy Maple. “Find my mother. I want her in Los Angeles today.”
Inside, Alaina watched through the window as Noah walked away from her for the second time. Peter reached for her hand, but she could not feel the comfort. Nora Preston was about to learn that the secret she forced Alaina to keep had finally reached her son.
