My neck cranks to my left when India mumbles under her breath, “So you can fill his head with more lies?”
Even having no reason to defend myself to her, I snap out, “I haven’t lied.”
“So, you told him you’renotpregnant?” India asks with a raised brow and a stern glare. “He knows you’re no longer carrying his child?”
“No.” For one word, it shouldn’t crack my voice the way it did. It was almost as fragile as my heart feels. This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have with spectators. It could only be more uncomfortable if it were happening while I was naked. “But that’s because I haven’t had the chance.” I spin back around to face Dimitri. My fast movements cause a rush of dizziness to bombard my head, but I continue on, preferring to face an interrogation head-on than cower like a coward. “I lost our baby the first night I was taken. Maestro did an ultrasound on a machine just like that—”
“Puh-leaze.Like a hired goon would know how to turn on a sonograph machine, much less use it.”
I continue talking as if India never interrupted me, “After discovering I was around six to eight weeks along, he hit me in the stomach, then kicked me over and over again.” Tears spring in my eyes just recalling what happened. “When he couldn’t kill our baby with brutality, he tried another way.” Big salty blobs roll down my cheeks when Dimitri cups my jaw. His hands are so large, they take up almost all my face, and the callouses on his fingers scratch my cheek when he wipes away my tears. “They had hospital-like rooms on the lower level of the ranch. There was medical equipment, pads, and a whole heap of other things I don’t want to remember.”
India huffs again, but I don’t care. Dimitri seems to believe me, and that’s all that matters.
“He was going to…” I make a hand gesture that shouldn’t speak on my behalf, but it somehow does. “… but Audrey stopped him. She hit him over the head, then helped me get away.”
Now I feel bad about what Dimitri and I did last night. I thought it was the start of something magical, where in reality, it was the commencement of me being his mistress. He’s married, and the woman he is married to did her best to save our child. I owe her more credit than I’m giving her.
After sucking down a nerve-cleansing breath, I finish my story on a somber note, “Unfortunately, it was too late. I miscarried our baby the following morning.” I step closer to Dimitri, not wanting the slightest snippet of air between us when I say, “I wanted to tell you last night, but you were riding the high of your victory. I didn’t want to steal the glory from you.” I stray my eyes around the room, noting the remorse on both Smith and Rocco’s faces. India’s is nowhere near as repentant as theirs. “I’m sorry I had to tell you like this, with an audience, but I didn’t lie. I just omitted the truth for a more appropriate time.”
“Please tell me you’re not believing her sob story,” India gabbles out when Dimitri’s thumb switches from wiping away my tears to tracking the curve of my kiss-swollen lips. “I doubt she was pregnant to begin with. Who has a miscarriage and only bleeds for an hour or two?” I feel both sorry and angry when India mutters, “It doesn’t work that way. I know because I’ve had plenty of miscarriages.” She races to the doctor’s side I had forgotten was in the room. “Tell them. Tell him how unlikely her story is.”
The gentleman I’d guess to be mid-sixties coughs to clear his throat before saying, “It is unlikely to only bleed for a couple of hours.”
“But possible?” Smith jumps in like he too knows how it feels to be put on the spot when predicting medical anomalies.
The doctor lowers his chin, his head-bob somewhat cowardice. “But possible.”
After glaring at the doctor with a stare as woeful as Satan, India locks her eyes with mine, then snaps out, “Fine. If they want to believe your sob act, prove you were really pregnant.”
“How can I prove it?” The hesitation in my question is understandable. I’m still new to all of this. “Maestro didn’t print out memory keepsakes for me.”
India steps closer to me, her hips swinging like she’s on a runway instead of a warpath. “Dr. Klein can do a quick ultrasound of your uterus. If you recently lost a baby…” she air quotes her last word like she doesn’t believe a single thing I said, “… he will be able to tell.”
“Is that true?” Dimitri’s tone is a mixture of annoyed and hopeful. I thought he was on my side, so the unease in his voice is a little off-putting.
The doctor dips his chin. This one is more headstrong than his earlier one. “Yes. Pockets inside the uterine wall can indicate if a pregnancy was recently dissolved.” The way he mutters ‘dissolved’ makes me sick to my stomach. I didn’t dissolve my pregnancy. Our child was taken away from me against my will. I didn’t do anything wrong. I am not at fault. I fought with everything I had.
As I will again now. “Okay. I agree to do your sonograph.”
“You don’t need to do this, Roxanne.”
Although I appreciate Dimitri’s sudden return to the plate with a bigger bat, it comes too late. The ugly head of doubt has already been raised.
I whip around to face Dr. Klein so quickly, my hair slaps my face. “Where do you want me?”
When he places a pillow on the opposite end of the bed, I sidestep him, shrug off my coat, then lay down. I don’t peer at the monitor every set of eyes in the room arrow in on when he lifts my shirt and squirts gel onto my stomach. I scan Dimitri’s face, knowing there’s only seconds before the distrust in his eyes switches to remorse.
I hate that he needs to bring in outsiders to trust me, but I also understand it. He can’t even trust family, so why did I stupidly believe I ever stood a chance?
I renege on my wish to watch Dimitri’s every expression when he asks a few seconds later, “What’s that?”
My eyes shoot to the monitor so fast, my head grows woozy. I scan the black and white image like a crazy woman, seeking anything similar to the jelly-bean shape blob I saw days ago.
I don’t find a single thing close to a baby. I discover why when Dr. Klein says, “That’s Roxanne’s ovary. It’s badly damaged.”
“Because she miscarried?” Dimitri asks before I can.
Sprinkles of salt and pepper hair fall into Dr. Klein’s eyes when he shakes his head. “No. Excluding miscarriages in the fallopian tube, they don’t affect the female reproductive system. Roxanne has what we call PCOS. Polycystic ovary syndrome. It is a hormone disorder commonly found in women of reproductive age.”
