Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 1497

Andrew pressed his thin lips together, clearly reluctant to bring up the past at this moment. "Let's eat first. The noodles won't be good if they sit for too long."

Seeing him try to dodge the topic, Teresa didn't push him immediately. She picked up her fork and ate quietly with him. But the moment he put his fork down, her gaze locked onto him again. She had no intention of letting him off the hook. "You stopped halfway through your sentence earlier. Are you ready to explain now?"

Seeing her determination to get to the bottom of it, Andrew felt utterly helpless. He pulled Teresa into his embrace and let out a long, heavy sigh. "Laney was not born out of my own free will," he began, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "My marriage to her mother was nothing but a business arrangement dictated by our families. But her mother... she was a lesbian."

Teresa whipped her head around, staring at him in sheer disbelief. "Then why did you..."

Andrew offered a bitter smile, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Teresa's ear. "Probably because, back then, I still couldn't let you go." His eyes filled with deep affection, yet carried a lingering bitterness. "I had no desire to be physically intimate with any other woman. So, we made a deal. I agreed to a sexless marriage."

Teresa was stunned, a chaotic swirl of emotions flooding her heart.

"But who could have predicted that shortly after the wedding, her secret would explode?" Andrew's eyes grew cold. "Her parents discovered her affair and forcibly separated them. Worse, they pressured her, demanding she have a child with me. If she refused, they threatened to ruin her lover's life. Pushed to a corner, she came begging to me." He let out a cold laugh. "She wanted me to sleep with her, just to produce a child to appease them. I refused. Why would I ever agree to have a child I didn't want with a woman I didn't love? But to save that woman, she drugged me when I wasn't looking. That is how Laney came to be."

Teresa was utterly speechless. She never imagined that the lonely, pitiful girl upstairs was born from such dark circumstances. "What happened after that?" she asked urgently.

"She and her girlfriend... still didn't end up together," Andrew interrupted, his tone laced with mockery. "Her lover was only ever after her money. The moment she found out my ex-wife was pregnant with my child, she took all her money and vanished without a trace."

"It seems her mother's homosexuality was some kind of sickness, one that was hereditary." Andrew frowned deeply, his voice laced with undisguised repulsion. "Laney inherited those traits. Growing up, she only ever hung around girls and actively rejected boys. Now, I do not discriminate against homosexuality, but..." Andrew took a deep breath. "After everything her mother put me through, I find their pathological sexual orientation utterly repulsive."

Suddenly, Teresa understood why Andrew said he despised Laney. Anyone who had gone through such a traumatic betrayal would be left with deep emotional scars. Yet, remembering the sight of Laney clutching the warm egg, her eyes red and tearful, Teresa's heart softened once again.

"But Andrew... no matter what her mother did, Laney is still just a young woman. She had no mother to love her, and for the past ten years, she hasn't had you to care for her either. Stumbling through life all alone in a foreign country is truly heartbreaking." Teresa's tone softened into a gentle plea. "Please, stop being so cruel to her from now on, alright?"

Looking down into Teresa's tender, pleading eyes, the thick ice surrounding Andrew's heart slowly began to thaw. He let out a resigned sigh and finally compromised. "Alright. Whatever you say."