Hillbilly Girlie Marries a Billionaire – Episode 26
Emily stepped from the shadows with her phone lowered but still recording. The clinic technician pulled his cap farther over his face and moved toward the service exit. Sophie remained calm, certain status would protect her from anything Emily claimed to have heard.
“Your husband already belongs to his child,” Sophie said. Emily answered that children were people, not chains. If the baby was Lucas’s, he would love and support it, but Sophie would never gain his heart by using an innocent life as leverage.
Sophie laughed and asked what Emily understood about belonging. She had entered the estate through a paid contract and survived only because Lucas enjoyed rescuing damaged things. The pregnancy, by contrast, tied Sophie to him through blood.
Emily reminded her that Lucas had publicly ended the contract and chosen the marriage. Sophie’s face tightened. Every insult based on money had become less useful once Emily stayed without payment.
The technician reached the door. Noah appeared outside and blocked him. He had followed the altered courier trail to the estate and arrived in time to hear enough. Sophie’s composure finally fractured.
Noah demanded the man’s name and identification. The technician shoved past him, dropping a key card before disappearing into the grounds. Noah recovered it. The card belonged to the fertility clinic Sophie had visited under Victoria’s identity.
Sophie claimed the clinic handled her ordinary prenatal care. Emily asked why she had used someone else’s name. Sophie clutched her abdomen and said stress was causing pain, forcing Noah to choose between interrogation and medical safety.
They summoned the nurse. Sophie’s pulse was normal, but she continued moaning until Victoria arrived. Seeing Emily and Noah cornering the pregnant woman allowed Victoria to construct the conclusion she already wanted.
Victoria accused them of endangering the heir. Noah showed her the mismatched vial numbers and clinic key card. She refused to examine either, insisting minor administrative errors did not justify harassing Sophie.
Lucas entered after security alerted him. Emily played the recording. The audio captured Sophie asking whether the result would withstand scrutiny, but not the earlier reference to theft. Sophie argued she had merely asked whether the independent test was accurate.
Lucas believed Emily yet recognized the evidence remained ambiguous. He ordered Sophie moved to a guarded guest suite and prohibited unsupervised visitors. Victoria called it imprisonment. Lucas called it protection for everyone until the result arrived.
Sophie demanded Emily leave instead. Lucas refused. She reminded him that a child deserved parents under one roof. He replied that a child deserved honesty more than a staged family built on coercion.
Emily felt pride and sorrow at once. Even if the baby was Lucas’s, Sophie had already made parenthood a battlefield. She wondered whether love could shield a child from adults determined to use it.
Upstairs, Lucas asked why Emily had followed Sophie alone after promising partnership. Emily admitted she feared alerting the conspirators. He said trust worked both ways; protecting him through secrecy repeated the same mistake she criticized in him.
She apologized. Lucas did not punish the choice with silence. He asked her to promise they would investigate together from then on. Emily agreed, appreciating that disagreement no longer threatened abandonment.
Noah traced the key card to a restricted laboratory room used for genetic storage. Records showed entry under Victoria’s credentials six weeks earlier—the same day Sophie visited the clinic in EP20. Victoria denied being present and accused Sophie of stealing her identity.
For the first time, suspicion entered Victoria’s eyes. She confronted Sophie privately, demanding the truth. Sophie insisted she used the name only to avoid gossip and that the pregnancy remained Lucas’s.
Victoria warned that if Sophie had fabricated an Anderson heir, no family connection would save her. Sophie turned the warning around: exposing the lie now would also expose Victoria’s role in bringing her into the estate and attacking Emily.
Their alliance became mutual blackmail. Victoria agreed to wait for the test, but she secretly instructed a trusted investigator to audit every clinic employee. She still despised Emily, yet being manipulated offended her more deeply than Lucas’s disobedience.
Near midnight, the laboratory emailed the result. Lucas opened the encrypted report with Emily and Noah beside him. The document stated a 99.99 percent probability that Lucas Anderson was the biological father—and Sophie’s triumphant scream echoed from the east wing before anyone had told her the result.