Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 13
Lucas crossed the room and removed Sophie’s hand from Emily’s wrist. He did not shove her or raise his voice, but his restraint carried a threat no one misunderstood. Emily rose beside him, fighting the tremor in her knees. Being rescued relieved her; needing rescue in front of these people enraged her.
Sophie claimed she had been protecting the Anderson family from a fraud. She waved Emily’s surrogacy application as proof that the marriage was a paid arrangement. Rose supported her, insisting Emily had targeted Lucas after failing to extract money from Kevin.
Lucas took the paper, tore it once, and let the pieces fall. The application proved Emily had been desperate to save her mother, nothing more. He informed the gathering that Emily had never concealed her circumstances from him and that anyone using a sick woman as leverage would lose access to his family and his companies.
Rose reminded him that Sophie’s family supplied stones to the Anderson jewelry empire. Lucas canceled the partnership before she finished the sentence. Sophie went pale. Months of negotiations vanished because she had mistaken business value for permission to abuse his wife.
“This isn’t about business,” Lucas said when Sophie protested. “It’s about boundaries, and you crossed every one.” He summoned security and ordered both women removed. Rose tried to distance herself from Sophie, but Emily remembered how eagerly they had surrounded her and said nothing in Rose’s defense.
Sophie’s humiliation sharpened into venom. She called Emily a placeholder, a tool, and a woman purchased to produce an heir. The insults landed because Emily had already whispered similar fears to herself. Lucas felt her withdraw beside him and realized public punishment would not erase what had been done.
He removed the heavy signet ring from his right hand. The Anderson crest glinted in the chandelier light. Family members fell silent, recognizing an heirloom traditionally carried by the head of the household and transferred only as a declaration of absolute trust.
Lucas slid the ring onto a chain from his pocket and fastened it around Emily’s neck. It rested above her heart beside the emerald pendant. “From now on, my wife represents everything I stand for,” he announced. “An insult to her is an insult to me.”
Emily looked up at him, overwhelmed. The gesture exceeded protection required by their agreement and placed part of his authority in her hands. Sophie saw it too. Her expression changed from outrage to something almost feral before the guards led her away.
Rose turned on Kevin, blaming him for connecting her to Emily. Kevin, desperate to preserve his comfortable life, dropped to his knees and offered Emily repayment. He pressed a check toward her, promising every dollar she had spent if she persuaded Lucas not to punish them.
Emily stared at the man she had once loved. Yesterday she would have begged for that money. Today his apology was merely another transaction, offered only because someone more powerful frightened him. She took the check, tore it in half, and told him the hospital debt had already been paid by a better man.
Kevin’s face twisted. Returning home poor terrified him more than losing Emily ever had. As security dragged him toward the exit, he wrenched free and seized a champagne bottle from a passing tray. Rage made his intention obvious one second too late.
The bottle arced toward Emily’s head. Lucas pulled her against him and turned. Glass shattered across his shoulder, cutting through his jacket. Emily felt his body jerk, then saw blood spread along the dark fabric.
Security subdued Kevin. Rose screamed that she had nothing to do with the attack, while guests scattered from the broken glass. Emily heard none of them clearly. Her world narrowed to Lucas’s pale face and the blood running over her fingers when she pressed a napkin to his wound.
Lucas insisted the injury was shallow. Emily refused to believe him until the family doctor examined the cut in a private room and confirmed no artery or bone had been damaged. Stitches were necessary, but Lucas remained more concerned with whether the glass had touched her.
The doctor ordered rest and warned him against pulling the wound. Grandfather Anderson arranged for Kevin’s arrest, then told Emily she should stay with Lucas. The old man’s earlier suspicion had changed into grim respect; no contract could have forced Lucas’s instinctive choice to take the blow.
In the master suite, Emily helped remove Lucas’s ruined jacket. Her hands shook near the bandage. Lucas told her to breathe, but guilt pressed against her lungs. Every danger since their marriage seemed to reach him through her.
He said Kevin’s violence belonged to Kevin alone. Emily had not caused it by surviving him. The words loosened something painful inside her. When she thanked Lucas for protecting her, he answered that he had not made a decision. His body had moved before thought.
That admission brought them dangerously close to a truth neither was prepared to name. Emily realized her hand rested against his chest, near the steady beat beneath his shirt. Lucas covered her fingers with his and did not let go.
A housekeeper entered carrying sleepwear, stopped at the sight of them, and hastily retreated with a knowing apology. Emily’s face burned. Lucas almost smiled—until he saw the sheer nightgown left on the bed and understood that his grandfather’s staff expected the newlyweds to prove far more than affection before morning.