We Will Love Again – Episode 21
Nora Preston arrived in Los Angeles before sunset, summoned by a son who had refused to explain himself over the phone. She entered Noah’s hotel suite with controlled irritation, expecting a business crisis or family emergency. Instead, she found him standing beside the windows with an old photograph of Alaina’s mother on his screen.
“You had Aaron bring me across the country for this?” Nora set down her purse. “I thought something had happened to you.”
“Something did.” Noah turned from the city view. The composure that intimidated investors barely contained the hurt beneath it. “Five years ago, at St. Mary’s Hospital.”
Nora’s expression changed for less than a second. Anyone else might have missed it, but Noah had built his fortune by noticing hesitation before negotiations collapsed.
“I visited Alaina’s mother many times,” she said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The day you sent me downstairs for coffee.” Noah remembered returning to find Alaina quiet and his mother unusually satisfied. At the time, love had made him blind to both.
Nora removed her coat with deliberate care. “I don’t understand why you’re digging through an old tragedy. Alaina made her choice.”
“Did she?” He crossed the room and stopped in front of her. “Peter says their relationship was an act. Alaina knew about Oxford even though I never told her. You were one of the few people who knew.”
“Then perhaps she went through your things.” Nora’s answer came too quickly. “You learned what kind of woman she was. Don’t let nostalgia rewrite history.”
Noah studied the mother who had raised him through poverty, worked double shifts, and taught him never to wait for rescue. Loyalty urged him to accept her explanation. Every contradiction he uncovered warned him not to.
“She kept the ring,” he said. “The one she threw away. She’s carried it for five years.”
Nora’s mouth tightened. “Sentimentality doesn’t make someone innocent. People keep trophies from all kinds of mistakes.”
“She stayed with her mother until she died. She never married Peter. She never got rich.” Each fact sounded like an indictment of the story they had both believed.
“And now she works for the company you’re acquiring,” Nora replied. “How convenient that her regret appeared after you became a billionaire.”
Noah heard the contempt beneath her logic. It resembled Alaina’s performance on the day of their breakup so closely that anger chilled inside him.
“What did you say to her in that hospital room?” he asked again.
Nora met his eyes. “I told her the truth. You were throwing away your future for a woman who would never stop needing you.”
The admission cracked open the last defense between them. “Did you ask her to leave me?”
“I asked her to prove she loved you.” Nora did not apologize. “If she chose cruelty as the method, that was her decision.”
Noah stared at her, finally understanding that his mother had not merely witnessed his heartbreak. She had planted the choice that created it—and she still believed she had saved him.
