Page 5 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

He trails off and lifts his old brown gaze to meet mine again.

It’s there—mixed with the fear.

The truth.

Heknows.

He’salwaysknown.

He didn’t do a damn thing to stop him then, when I needed a savior, when I begged for someone to help me. And now, he doesn’t know how to.

* * *

LYLA

“I would just need a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer to begin—”

The attorney’s words echo in my ears. Everything he said after that point is nothing but garbledwah wah wah wahlike that old cartoon teacher. But thatamount—I can’t get that out of my head.

A week later, it rattles around, slamming against the inside of my skull. Taunting me. Toying with me. Incessantly reminding me exactly how far out of reach it really is—how well and trulyfuckedI am—unless I do somethingdrastic.

Something awful.

Something I never, in a billion years, thought I would ever find myself doing.

Something I may not be able to actually go through with…

“Ma’am, do you have questions?”

I tear my focus from the pamphlet in front of me and look to Carly, the beautiful blonde, with her dazzling white smile and porcelain face that’s so tight and unwrinkled that she must have been shot up with a gallon of Botox.

She tilts her head, examining me. “I know it’s a lot of information to digest, but I’m happy to answeranyquestions at all.” One of her perfectly manicured hands presses against her voluptuous chest. “As someone who was once a mail-order bride myself, I can attest that thisworks!”

My eyes dip to the massive diamond on her left ring finger, then over the tennis bracelet at her wrist and matching earrings dangling from her ears. She certainlylooksthe part—though, I guess I don’t really know what a mail-order bride is supposed to do or look like. Aside from what I’ve seen in movies, TV, and on social media, this is all new to me.

And terrifying.

I swallow thickly.

How can I ask this without sounding judgmental?

It may not be possible because Iamjudging her for doing this—the very thingI’mcontemplating. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see a mail-order bride as anything but a very expensive prostitute. “This is all…legal?”

It can’t be, right?

Taking money from someone to marry them—that sounds awfullyunlawful.

I glance around the offices of Wife Wanted Enterprises. While itseemslegit, it also seems like prostitution, which might be legal in certain places, but it certainly isn’t in Pennsylvania.

The woman purses her injected lips. “Lyla…can I call you Lyla?”

I nod. This bubbly blonde may be the only thing standing between me and the fifty-grand retainer I need to come up with. The least I can do is let her call me by my first name.

She smiles. “Good. Look, I see you’re uncomfortable with being here, but since youarehere, I’m going to assume you’ve found yourself in some sort of financial trouble because you do not seem like the type of girl who is here looking to make a true love match…”

True love match?

The bark of laughter floats out before I can stop it, and Carly flinches slightly in her chair at the sound.

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