Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 23
The garden emptied without celebration. Emily’s mother returned to the hospital before the strain exhausted her, holding Emily’s hands and urging her not to decide anything while afraid. Lucas walked them to the car, but the untouched proposal ring remained in his pocket like a question neither could face.
Sophie settled into the east wing with Victoria supervising every pillow and meal. She behaved as though pregnancy had already made her mistress of the estate. Staff members who once bowed to Emily now looked between the two women, uncertain which future carried greater power.
Lucas ordered an independent prenatal paternity test at a laboratory with no connection to Sophie, Victoria, or the Anderson companies. Sophie agreed, insisting the result would vindicate her. Behind closed doors, she contacted the clinic technician and reminded him that his payment depended on controlling every sample.
Emily asked Lucas what he remembered about the gala. He described two drinks, a migraine, and Adam taking him home. There had been no missing morning or unexplained room. Yet he admitted that the alcohol had affected him unusually strongly, leaving gaps Sophie could exploit.
“Do you believe her?” he asked. Emily said she believed him. Trust did not erase the medical document, but the man who stopped before kissing her to ensure consent could not fit Sophie’s story of drunken aggression.
Lucas wanted to remove Sophie from the estate until testing was complete. Emily opposed it only because a real pregnancy deserved medical safety, regardless of the mother’s lies. Her compassion frustrated him. He feared Sophie would use it as an unlocked door.
At breakfast, Victoria served Sophie herbal tea and imported fruit while ignoring Emily’s place. Grandfather Anderson corrected the slight by asking Emily to sit beside him. The meal became a silent contest over every gesture.
Sophie discussed nursery colors and claimed the child kicked whenever Lucas entered. The pregnancy was too early for visible movement, but Victoria accepted the performance because it supported the future she wanted. Emily noticed Noah watching Sophie’s abdomen with quiet suspicion.
Noah later told Emily the timing made little sense. If conception happened at the gala, Sophie should be farther along than her ultrasound indicated. Emily asked why the doctors had not raised the discrepancy. Noah replied that wealthy families often heard whatever their payments encouraged.
They brought the concern to Lucas. He ordered Adam to obtain security footage, guest records, and bar receipts from the gala. The hotel had preserved most archives, but footage from the private corridor had mysteriously vanished.
Sophie entered Lucas’s study without permission and placed his hand on her abdomen. He withdrew immediately. She insisted the child deserved a father and that Emily would never understand their bond because she had failed even as a surrogate.
Lucas told her Emily had never been his surrogate. The misunderstanding ended before their marriage, and no child formed the basis of his love. Sophie’s certainty faltered; she had built part of her plan on a humiliation that no longer carried truth.
He ordered her not to touch him again. Sophie threatened to harm herself if forced from the estate. Lucas summoned a psychiatrist and security rather than yielding to emotional blackmail. Victoria accused him of cruelty toward the mother of his child.
Grandfather Anderson demanded calm until the test. He also postponed any succession decision connected to the baby. Victoria’s disappointment revealed that the pregnancy mattered to her not only as family, but as leverage over Lucas’s choices.
That night, Emily found the proposal photographs still hanging in the garden. Lucas joined her and apologized for the ruined moment. She said Sophie had interrupted an answer, not changed it.
He asked whether she could give the answer now. Emily almost did, but the possibility of an innocent child complicated the life she was choosing. She would not ask Lucas to abandon a baby if the test proved him to be the father.
Lucas said fatherhood would create responsibility, not love for Sophie and not the end of his marriage. Emily understood, yet she had watched her own mother struggle alone. A child divided between hostile households would carry wounds no money could repair.
They agreed to wait for facts. Lucas kissed her forehead rather than press for certainty. The restraint strengthened her trust, though it left them both aching beneath the unfinished proposal.
In the east wing, Sophie opened a locked cosmetics case containing medication, clinic receipts, and a vial labeled with Lucas’s name. She burned the receipts but kept the vial as insurance. Victoria entered before she could hide everything.
Sophie closed the case too quickly. Victoria noticed. She asked what her supposed future daughter-in-law was concealing, and Sophie realized the ally who welcomed her pregnancy might become more dangerous than Emily if she discovered how the child had truly been conceived.