He sat in his car for as long as I stood there watching.
Neither of us said a word about it.
Noah turned his head, looking out the window, refusing to meet my eyes.
“So, you finally said it…”
Even with his body tightly wrapped in his suit, his posture rigid to the point of tension, he couldn’t suppress the faint tremor
running through him.
I pressed my lips together, swallowing the ache in my chest, but still, I forced out a small smile.
“Noah, you’re a good man. You really are. But life is long. There’s so much more ahead of us. We can’t be trapped in love alone.”
Suddenly, Noah’s emotions erupted.
He slammed his fist against the steering wheel, his voice raw with frustration.
“But I want to marry you! That’s all I want! Is it so wrong to want to spend my life with the person I love? Why does everyone
keep telling me I made a mistake?! What did I do wrong?”
For the first time, the Noah who had always been proud and in control, looked utterly shattered like someone had broken him
from the inside out.
“Chloe, tell me… why do I owe anything to people who don’t matter to me? Why does it have to be me?”
A single tear slipped down his cheek as he stared at me.
“Sometimes, I think… if they had already lost me once, then they should have just lost me forever,
“Why did they have to find me, only to point at my face and tell me that my shoulders carry the weight of the entire Wells family?
That I have to protect their legacy, that I have to uphold the family name?
“Why?!
