Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 20
Lucas remained in the hospital overnight, and Emily refused to leave. She slept in the chair with one hand resting near his, waking whenever a monitor changed rhythm. At dawn, she found him watching her with an expression too tender to meet directly.
He asked about the green ring. Emily repeated that she was choosing one day at a time. Lucas said he could accept patience, but not another year ruled by terms neither of them wanted. When they returned home, they would tear up every copy of the contract together. Whatever replaced it would have to survive without money forcing either of them to stay.
Noah arrived with breakfast and news that Mia had confessed to accepting payment from Victoria’s intermediary. She denied knowing the attacker carried a bottle. Police had enough evidence for charges, though Victoria’s lawyers would argue she ordered embarrassment rather than violence.
Emily did not want Lucas to destroy his mother for her. He answered that consequences were not destruction; they were the boundary Victoria had avoided her entire life. Protecting family from accountability had allowed cruelty to become tradition.
Adam entered with worse news. Photographs of Emily at the surrogacy agency had reached a gossip site, along with selected pages from the marriage contract. Headlines accused the Anderson heir of purchasing a wife and Emily of selling an unborn child for access to the family fortune.
The hospital corridor filled with reporters within minutes. They shouted questions about pregnancy, payment, and the five-percent family holding. Security could block their bodies but not the accusations echoing through every phone. Emily’s mother called from her ward after seeing the story on television, terrified that her illness had forced Emily into something shameful.
Emily stepped into a private room to calm her. She explained the misunderstanding, the legal marriage, and the contract she had signed willingly. Her mother listened, then asked the only question that mattered: whether Lucas treated her with kindness when no one was watching.
Emily looked through the glass at Lucas arguing with security despite his bandage. She said yes. Her mother replied that poverty had never made their family cheap; only people without love confused need with a lack of worth. The words restored Emily’s balance.
Lucas planned a statement denying every allegation. Emily stopped him. A denial from a billionaire would be dismissed as damage control, while silence would let Sophie define her story. She wanted to speak for herself.
They faced the cameras together at the hospital entrance. Emily admitted she had applied to become a surrogate because her mother needed lifesaving care. She refused to apologize. She had been prepared to give something enormous out of love, and anyone mocking that choice revealed more about themselves than about her.
She explained that a misunderstanding led her into Lucas’s office, where they agreed to a temporary marriage instead. The contract was real. So were Lucas’s payment of the hospital bills, his need to protect his position, and her decision to accept. Gasps moved through the press at the frank admission.
Lucas took the microphone and confirmed every word. He said the agreement might have introduced them, but it did not explain why Emily saved a stranger, faced his family honestly, or stayed beside him while he was injured. A contract could require appearances; it could not manufacture courage or devotion.
A reporter asked whether Emily was pregnant. She answered no. Another asked whether the marriage would end after one year. Lucas looked at Emily before replying that the contract would end that day, but the marriage would continue only if she chose it.
Every camera turned toward her. Emily felt the pressure of a public proposal without kneeling or diamonds. She refused to give strangers ownership of the answer. Smiling faintly, she said her husband would hear it first.
The clip spread within minutes. Public opinion shifted as viewers responded to Emily’s honesty, and the company’s stock stabilized. Sophie watched from a parked car, furious that her evidence had become the couple’s strongest defense.
Back at the estate, Grandfather Anderson ordered every copy of the contract gathered for destruction. Noah brought the final company file. Emily placed her copy beside it, remembering the terrified woman who had signed because she believed money was her only remaining hope.
Lucas struck a match and offered it to her. Emily burned the pages in the fireplace. The paper curled around clauses governing separate rooms, public duties, and the one-year ending. When the final signature turned to ash, she felt neither purchased nor trapped.
Lucas asked for her answer. Emily told him she would remain his wife, but on terms they created together: no lies disguised as protection, no decisions about her life made without her, and no throwing himself in front of glass bottles unless absolutely necessary.
He agreed to the first two and refused to promise the third. Emily laughed, then kissed him before another argument could begin. This kiss held no audience, no test, and no debt—only two people choosing what the contract had failed to predict.
Across town, Sophie entered a fertility clinic using an appointment made under Victoria Anderson’s name. She placed a stolen medical container on the desk and told the technician she needed a pregnancy that would survive a paternity test. If Emily’s marriage could no longer be broken by paper, Sophie intended to destroy it with an Anderson heir.