Sensing something was wrong, Yardley quickly grabbed her shoulders in a panic.
"Sylvia, what's wrong? I've told you before, you had heart surgery when you were a kid. You can't let yourself get this worked up... Quick, take a deep breath!"
Sylvia took a sharp, desperate breath, her body going completely limp as she collapsed into his arms.
Yardley's heart skipped a beat. He knew this crossed a line, and his first instinct was to push her away. But seeing her face contorted in pain, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Sylvia wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, trembling violently.
"Yardley, I really don't want to leave you again. You have no idea what I went through those five years abroad."
"Now I realize that you're the only person in the world who truly cares about me. If it wasn't for you, I don't know how I would have survived my pregnancy and delivery."
Yardley felt a sharp pang of sympathy, unsure of what to say. He still remembered what she looked like when his aunt, Gwen Quinn, brought her back from the orphanage—so frail and pitiful.
Her background was tragic. Born with a heart defect, she had been abandoned on the street by her parents before the orphanage took her in. Gwen had gone to the orphanage for charity work, saw the little girl hovering between life and death, and, in a moment of compassion, adopted her and paid for her surgery.
But after Sylvia recovered, Gwen and her husband's relationship completely fell apart. They gave each other the silent treatment, fought constantly, and things even got physical. Seeing how much Sylvia was suffering, Yardley finally suggested to Corinne that they bring her to the Flynn family to raise her.
When Sylvia first arrived, she was tiny. Her face was barely the size of his palm.
He was the one who patiently fed her every meal, slowly nursing her back to health.
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