A Life Debt Repaid

Chapter 1

to survive—amid her despair, the firefighters arrived just in time and rescued her.However, she had inhaled too much smoke and suffered blunt trauma on her right leg—she was unconscious when they got her out, and they rushed her to the hospital right after.It was not until the next morning that she woke up.There was a gentle breeze in the air—it was a beautiful early summer day in North City and a ray of sunshine landed on her pale, frail cheeks and her long, thick eyelashes.She was looking coolly out at the blue sky and the clouds above. Her calm visage showed no emotion, and she was so still she could well still be unconscious.She did not realize that someone had suddenly opened the door to her ward, and she turned to find her father, stepmother, and Noel in the room already.“Are you alright, Cordy?” Noel asked tearfully.All Cordy could think about right then was the sight of Kyle saving Noel. She averted her eyes from them.“You’re always so rude! Don’t you see that your sister cares about you?” her father, Simon Sachs, snapped right then. On the other hand, Cordy’s stepmother, Sue Yorkman, could see that Cordy did not want to talk. Sue quickly told him, “Simon, Cordy is just a child. We have more important matters anyway.”Simon did not want to waste his breath with Cordy either, and said right away, “You probably know by now, but Noel’s the one Kyle actually loves, and it’s a lucky coincidence that the wedding was disrupted. So give them your blessing and announce the annulment of your engagement with Kyle.”Cordy laughed despite her fury and she asked Simon, “Why?”“Because they love each other,” Simon said with utter conviction. “You’d already dragged our family’s name through the mud when you had a child out of wedlock! All of North City knows that, and did you really think the Jessops would accept someone with such a questionable past? They are giving you a way out, so take it!”Cordy’s questionable past went as far as she was eighteen.Noel had tricked Cordy to show up at a bar, where she was drugged and ended up waking up in the bed of a man she did not recognize.She was so distraught she did not even look at the man before running away, and she was too young to understand contraceptives. In fact, she was already five months pregnant before she realized what was happening, and Noel had sent the paparazzi after her when she tried to get to the abortion despite her pain.That was how Cordy ended up being the biggest laughing stock of North City.Things went from bad to worse when the doctor told her that she could not get an abortion for health reasons, and she therefore kept the child. She eventually came to accept it, only for it to come out stillborn… but in her anguish, when she needed comfort the most, Simon ruthlessly sent her abroad, leaving her to her own devices and without a word of concern for seven years.In fact, he never asked after her although she just escaped death, but he was already telling her to give up on Kyle because of his precious Noel?!How cold could a father be that he could tell her something so cruel, to rip open her old scars and draw blood?“I guess being a mistress runs in the family,” Cordy said with a sneer. “Drag the family’s name through the mud? You already did when you married your mistress while my mother’s body was