Breaking Mr. Cold (Giselle and Donovan) novel Chapter 578

Donovan remained silent for a long moment. Two minutes later, he finally broke the silence. "The truth is, I never touched that woman."

"So the 'evidence' the police collected at the scene was fake too?" she asked sharply.

Donovan lowered his head. "It was real."

"What do you mean?" Giselle said mockingly. "Are you saying she forced herself on you?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"You're insane," she snapped.

"Even if I explained, you might not believe me," he said.

Now that everything had finally cleared, and with them in this secluded, peaceful place, he felt it was time to tell her the full story of what happened in Astrakhan.

During the period last year when he had been cold and distant toward her, he had deliberately taken a long business trip to Astrakhan as a way to punish her. He planned to stay away for a month or two, waiting for Giselle to come to him and apologize.

During his stay, he attended several dinners with business partners and suppliers. It was at one of these events that he met a woman named Lauren Evans. He had no romantic interest in her, and their conversations remained strictly professional, focusing on work over drinks.

However, Lauren was skilled at engaging with men of his status. She knew how to find topics that caught his attention, and in the midst of his marital cold war, he began to feel a sense of companionship. Over time, they had a few private dinners together, purely as a way to pass the time.

His standards for a sexual partner were incredibly high. If he didn't meet someone who genuinely interested him, he could go a year or two without intimacy, preferring instead to isolate himself in his lab and focus on developing new drugs.

No matter how much the women around him lusted after him, none dared to climb into his bed, and no one would have the audacity to take advantage of him while he was drunk and asleep.

For other men, that might have seemed like a ready-made gift, but for Donovan, it was a grave violation of his privacy and dignity.

He felt as if he had been treated like an object, manipulated and toyed with. In a flash of anger, he slapped Lauren across the face and kicked her off the bed.

Blood ran from her mouth and nose, yet she didn't stop. In a near frenzy, she cried out apologies through her tears while seizing his hand and continuing to slap herself across the face.