📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Snatched a Billionaire to Be My Husband — Episode 4
Cora repeated the same reassurance throughout the walk home: she would never see Byron Hansen again. Los Angeles was enormous, and men like him moved through a world of private offices, guarded estates, and invitation-only rooms. One impulsive night could remain exactly that—a secret sealed behind a closed door.
“It’s okay, Cora,” she murmured as she entered her empty apartment. Silence answered her. The life she had known had vanished so quickly that even the familiar rooms seemed borrowed. “It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again. You’re good.”
She stopped before the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. Her makeup was smudged, her hair carried the evidence of Byron’s hands, and exhaustion shadowed her eyes. Still, she straightened her shoulders. If confidence had abandoned her, she would manufacture it one sentence at a time.
“You are a capable, smart, powerful woman,” she told her reflection. Once, those words would have sounded like facts. Now they felt like a spell she needed desperately to believe. “And you do not need a man in your life.” Especially not Easton, who had discarded her, or Byron, who had awakened appetites she could not afford.
Her phone rang before she could change. The hospital’s number flashed across the screen, and every thought of the Hansen men disappeared. Cora’s heart lurched. For three weeks, each call had carried the possibility that her mother had worsened—or that Cora had run out of time to say goodbye.
“Hello?” She gripped the phone with both hands. A member of the medical team confirmed her identity, then delivered the words Cora had prayed to hear through countless sleepless nights. “Your mother has woken up from her coma.”
Relief struck so powerfully that Cora had to brace herself against the wall. Tears blurred her vision as she reached for her keys. “I’m on my way.” She was out the door within seconds, all shame and uncertainty replaced by a single urgent need to see her mother alive and awake.
The hospital corridors smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. Cora hurried past nurses and visitors until she reached the room she had kept vigil beside for three endless weeks. Her mother looked fragile against the white pillows, but her eyes were open. Nothing Cora had ever seen was more beautiful.
“Hey, Mom.” The greeting broke in the middle. Cora bent over the bed and took her mother’s hand, careful of the monitors and tubing. Warm fingers curled weakly around hers, and the touch finally released the tears she had been holding back since the call.
“Cora, sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice was faint and confused. She searched her daughter’s face, then glanced around the unfamiliar room. “What happened to me?” Cora swallowed against the ache in her throat. She had rehearsed this explanation, but hope had made the reality no easier to speak.
“You had a stroke, but it’s okay,” Cora said, infusing the words with a confidence she did not feel. “You’re awake now. It’s only up from here.” Machines continued their measured beeping beside them, a reminder that waking was not the same as recovering.
Her mother frowned as she tried to collect the missing pieces. “How long have I been here?” Cora hesitated before answering. Three weeks sounded impossible when spoken aloud—three weeks in which the Lane family had collapsed, her father had died, and the man she planned to marry had abandoned her.
“Three weeks.” Alarm filled her mother’s face, and Cora quickly tightened her grip. “I thought that…” The unfinished fear needed no explanation. Cora had thought she would lose her too, leaving her entirely alone amid the wreckage her father had left behind.
“But it’s okay,” Cora insisted. “Just focus on getting better.” She could not burden her mother with debts, scandal, or Easton’s betrayal while she was this weak. If Cora had to carry every consequence alone, she would. At least now there was someone worth carrying them for.
Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry about the mess with your father. I’m so sorry.” The apology revealed that fragments of the disaster had reached her even through illness. Cora shook her head, unwilling to let guilt become another obstacle to her recovery.
“You’ve got me,” she said. “And we make a pretty good team. We’ll figure it out.” The promise was larger than anything she knew how to fulfill, but her mother relaxed against the pillow. For that small measure of peace, Cora would have promised the impossible.
A nurse entered and gently checked the monitors. The emotional reunion had already exhausted the patient, whose eyelids were beginning to droop. “We should let her rest,” the nurse advised. “It’s going to be a long recovery process.”
Cora kissed her mother’s forehead before stepping into the hallway. The door closed softly behind her, separating hope from the practical realities waiting outside. She leaned against the wall, grateful enough to feel weightless—until the nurse’s serious expression brought her back to earth.
“Also,” the nurse began carefully, “we should talk about billing.” The hospital had kept her mother alive for three weeks, and the treatment ahead would demand specialists, therapy, medication, and extended care. None of it would pause simply because the Lane fortune no longer existed.
Cora looked through the window at the only family she had left. Whatever number awaited her, she would find a way to pay it. But as the nurse led her toward the billing office, Cora could not shake the fear that saving her mother might require far more than she had left to give.
