The Mysterious Billionaire and His Substitute Bride

“Sir, take me right over here.” Lila showed the taxi driver the address on her phone.

“Oh, that looks like a distant neighborhood.” The driver spoke the Barnes dialect fluently, and when he saw the address, he was obviously grossed out.

Lila was accustomed to living in the rich area and had never left downtown. She knew nothing about this address and as she furrowed her brows, she asked, “Really?”

“That neighborhood happens to be both poor and messy. I know for a fact that the people living there are all poor families and hooligans. Why would you ever want to go there?” The driver glanced over at Lila. She was dressed from head to toe in elegant attire and didn’t look like someone who would live in such a bad neighborhood at all.

With a dry smile on her face, Lila told him, “I don’t think that’s any of your business. Just take me there.”

The Gillian family’s house was far away from the downtown area. The driver drove the cab into a dilapidated neighborhood.

As soon as Lila got out of the car, she could make out a broken and small apartment building, which looked really like the haunted houses in those horror movies. The walls looked very shabby and yellow unknown liquid was all over the mottled walls. In the corridors were piles of garbage that looked like it had been there for a very long time.

With her hand covering her mouth, Lila’s heart sank in her chest.

She wanted to burst into tears, but she couldn’t right then. She could only hold back the feeling of nausea and find the apartment unit where her parents lived.

knocked on the rusty iron

it?” A man shouted irritably from inside the apartment and the door

the corner of his mouth poked his head out. He stank

man and she proceeded to take two steps back. She

were

at her up and down, and suddenly, it seemed like he had come to his senses. Then he shouted excitedly at the woman in

right away. The floor

voice was rough and with a strong local accent, she said, “Lila?

Lila, the middle-aged woman embraced her

Beal

the White family. Now that Lila had been kicked out of the Whites’ house, they were both disappointed but at the same time happy that she was now coming home to

smell on Eva, she

“What’s that smell?”

happy at all since she walked into the room. This house was both dirty and shabby. Also, the whole apartment wasn’t even as

of a small business. At first, Lila thought that he would at least have some money. However, it turned out he was only an alcoholic

a country bumpkin. They were no match to the likes of her adoptive parents Beal and

desperate. She could hardly believe that she had been born from such a