Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 17
The Anderson kitchen had enough marble to resemble a showroom, but Emily transformed it by scattering flour across the counter and opening every cabinet. Cooking gave her hands a purpose while her mind recovered from breakfast. She decided on the simple honey cake her mother baked whenever the harvest ended well.
Noah perched on a stool and claimed expertise despite holding a whisk as if it were a weapon. Emily assigned him eggs and warned him not to drop shells into the bowl. He asked whether all farm girls issued orders so naturally. She replied that only helpless rich men required so many.
His laughter was unguarded. Emily glimpsed the brother beneath the rivalry—charming, lonely, and accustomed to turning every serious feeling into a joke. That did not make him safe, but it made him human. She understood why strangers trusted him quickly and why Lucas trusted him only with effort.
Noah offered a deal: he would stop investigating the marriage if Emily persuaded Lucas to give him greater authority in the company. Emily refused immediately. She would not manipulate one brother for the other, and any position Noah deserved should be earned without using her.
Rather than take offense, Noah appeared impressed. He admitted that most people near the Anderson family bargained eventually. Emily told him she had already made one contract and had discovered how easily business terms became tangled with human feelings.
She asked why he competed so fiercely with Lucas. Noah said Lucas had received the first praise, the first expectations, and every privilege that came with being the eldest. Noah learned early that being second meant becoming louder, sharper, and impossible to overlook.
Emily described raising chicks on the farm. The smallest one always fought hardest for grain, but chasing the others sometimes made it miss the food beneath its own feet. Noah listened solemnly until she revealed that the grown chickens eventually became Sunday dinner. His horrified expression made her laugh.
He reached to wipe flour from her cheek. Emily stepped back before his fingers touched her. Noah respected the boundary but told her that if he had met her before Lucas, the family story might look different. The flirtation carried more sincerity than before.
Lucas entered at that precise moment. He saw Noah leaning over the counter, Emily flushed from laughter, and two bowls abandoned between them. Jealousy struck with embarrassing speed. He asked what his brother was doing in the kitchen when he supposedly had board reports to review.
Noah announced that he and Emily were making Lucas a cake. Then, purely to provoke him, he claimed Emily had agreed to lunch. Lucas looked at her rather than accepting the bait. Emily denied making any such promise and suggested all three eat together if the brothers could behave like adults.
Neither appeared capable of that. Lucas said his wife would have lunch with him. Noah asked whether “wife” meant anything when the marriage began as a bargain. Emily saw Lucas flinch, though his expression remained controlled.
She reminded Noah that he had promised to stop using the contract as a weapon. Noah countered that he had promised only after she helped him understand Lucas, which she had not yet done. The playful mood vanished. Emily ordered both men away from her cake.
Lucas stayed. He passed her the cream while Noah reluctantly retreated, then apologized for treating her as something to defend rather than someone who could choose. Emily accepted, though she pointed out that declaring possession every time Noah approached hardly demonstrated trust.
Lucas asked whether she wanted Noah. The blunt question startled her. She answered that Noah was easier to read but harder to trust. Lucas was harder to read and becoming dangerously easy to trust. The honesty silenced them both.
Emily frosted the cake while Lucas watched. He admitted he had never felt jealous before because he had never cared whether someone stayed. The confession carried no polish, and that made it intimate. Emily placed the first spoonful of frosting on his plate as a peace offering.
They ate at the kitchen counter, sharing the imperfect cake. Lucas said it tasted like something made in a home rather than an estate. Emily realized he meant the distinction as praise. He confessed that family meals in the mansion had always felt like negotiations conducted with silverware. For a few minutes, power, contracts, and family schemes faded beneath honey and warm bread.
Upstairs, Victoria received Sophie through a private entrance. Sophie had failed to obtain the signed contract, but she brought photographs of the surrogacy application and an agency witness willing to lie. Victoria told her that implication would not be enough; they needed Emily publicly exposed.
Sophie proposed planting the original application in Emily’s room and inviting the press. Victoria rejected the crude plan. Instead, she arranged lunch at a restaurant controlled by an old friend, where Emily could be provoked away from Lucas and photographed fighting former staff.
Noah overheard only the final words as he passed the study: “Tomorrow, she leaves this family.” He paused outside the door. Warning Lucas would strengthen his brother, but silence might place Emily in danger.
Downstairs, Emily offered Noah the last slice of cake despite their argument. He looked at her open expression and made his choice. “Don’t go anywhere alone tomorrow,” he said quietly—just as Victoria entered and announced a family lunch where Emily would finally be introduced to the women who mattered in Anderson society.