Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 04
Emily looked from Lucas’s outstretched hand to the black car waiting at the curb. Every sensible warning she had ever learned told her not to follow a stranger, especially one whose suit probably cost more than her family’s truck. Yet Lucas had asked for nothing. His expression held neither pity nor the hungry calculation she had seen in Rose’s eyes.
“I can’t pay you,” she warned. Lucas answered that he had not asked her to. When another gust drove rain beneath the umbrella, he took her suitcase and placed it in Adam’s startled hands. The gesture was so matter-of-fact that Emily found herself inside the warm car before fear could organize another objection.
Leather seats, quiet heat, and the faint scent of cedar enclosed her. Water pooled beneath her boots, and Emily apologized repeatedly until Lucas handed her a clean handkerchief. He did not question her about the torn bills or the man who had abandoned her. His restraint felt kinder than sympathy.
At a luxury hotel, Lucas instructed the manager to prepare a room and charge every expense to his account. Emily protested at once. She had stopped a thief, not saved his life, and one night in this place had to cost more than Kevin’s monthly rent. Lucas replied that she needed shelter and he possessed more rooms than he could use.
The answer was dry enough to make her smile despite herself. At the elevator, she tried to return his handkerchief and discovered his jacket still around her shoulders. Lucas told her to keep both until they met again. Emily assumed the phrase was politeness; men like him did not cross paths twice with women like her by design.
“Then we’re even,” she said, gripping the jacket closed. Lucas’s gaze rested on her for a moment. “Not quite,” he answered. Before she could ask what remained, the elevator doors slid shut, leaving Emily with the strange certainty that he meant to see her again.
Lucas arrived late at the Anderson residence, where his grandfather waited at the head of a dining table long enough to stage a negotiation. The old man had little patience for excuses and less for Lucas’s refusal to marry. To him, an heir without a wife represented instability, and instability threatened the empire he had spent decades building.
Grandfather Anderson announced that Lucas had until the upcoming family banquet to present a suitable bride. Otherwise, control of the jewelry company would pass to Lucas’s younger brother, Noah. The threat was not new, but the deadline was. Lucas heard the trap beneath it: the family wanted leverage, not romance.
He refused to let a marriage arranged by ambitious relatives dictate his future. Back in the car, he told Adam to locate a contract bride—someone independent of society families, willing to follow clear terms, and uninterested in turning the arrangement into a love story. Adam promised to contact an agency immediately.
In the hotel room, Emily stood beneath hot water until feeling returned to her hands. The mirror afterward reflected swollen eyes and a woman she barely recognized. Lucas’s jacket hung over a chair, too elegant for the room’s exhausted occupant, yet its presence reminded her that Kevin’s rejection had not made her worthless.
Her phone displayed three missed calls from the hospital. Emily returned them with dread tightening her stomach. The billing officer’s voice was gentle but firm: unless she produced the required deposit, her mother’s next procedure would be postponed. The amount was far beyond anything Emily could earn before morning.
She searched job listings until the words blurred. Most required experience, references, or weeks before the first paycheck. A brightly colored advertisement promised five hundred thousand dollars to a healthy young surrogate. Emily recoiled, closed the page, then reopened it when the hospital sent a final notice.
The offer felt impossible and frightening, but so did losing her mother. Emily read every line she could find. The process was described as confidential, medically supervised, and intended for a wealthy client. She pressed a palm to her abdomen and wondered whether love sometimes demanded choices that changed a person forever.
By morning, an agency representative had confirmed her preliminary eligibility. The meeting would take place at an executive office in Maple Malls. Emily asked twice whether the compensation was real and whether payment could be advanced for medical care. The representative assured her the client had ample resources.
Elsewhere in Maple Malls, Adam reviewed a profile delivered by the contract-marriage agency. The chosen candidate came from an acceptable family, understood discretion, and had agreed to a one-year arrangement. Lucas barely glanced at the photograph. A bride was a solution to a corporate problem, not a person he intended to know.
He signed the preliminary authorization and instructed Adam to bring the woman in at noon. The faster they registered the marriage, the sooner his grandfather’s ultimatum would lose its force. Love had caused enough chaos in the Anderson family; Lucas trusted contracts because contracts admitted exactly what they wanted.
Emily arrived early, wearing her cleanest dress beneath Lucas’s oversized jacket. A receptionist directed her to a private suite and told her the client would meet her shortly. Emily rehearsed questions about medical procedures, pregnancy risks, and the timing of payment, though each one made her pulse race.
Lucas entered from the adjoining office and stopped. The woman waiting by the window turned, and recognition softened the surprise on both faces. Emily whispered his name. Lucas had not given it to her at the hotel, yet she had found it embroidered discreetly inside the jacket.
To Lucas, her presence meant Adam had somehow found the bold stranger and selected her as his contract bride. To Emily, the wealthy man who had rescued her was clearly the client seeking a surrogate. Their earlier kindness made each willing to trust what neither fully understood.
Lucas closed the door and placed a contract on the table. “If you accept my terms, I’ll make sure money is never a problem for you again.” Emily thought of her mother’s postponed treatment and reached for the pen. Neither of them noticed that the documents before her said nothing about surrogacy—and everything about becoming Mrs. Lucas Anderson.