Just a long, cutting side-eye filled with enough suspicion to slice through the space between us.
She felt it.
“Previous infections or surgical procedures?” I questioned, keeping my eyes locked on her. “What exactly could cause that? UTIs? STDs? Yeast infections? Abortions?”
The doctor shifted uncomfortably behind his desk.
Zonnique’s eyes widened for half a second, but I caught it.
She straightened in her chair and shook her head too quickly. “I’ve never had an abortion!” she blurted, her voice climbing another octave. “Never!”
I raised one brow. “You skipped right over the STD part, though.”
“Those neither!” she denied quickly, but her tone had lost its confidence.
I didn’t respond, nod, or argue; I just looked away and went quiet.
The doctor cleared his throat gently, trying to ease the tension in the room. “Well… to answer your question, scarring of this nature could be caused by several factors. Untreated pelvic inflammatory disease, or infections such as chlamydia or gonorrhea, are common culprits. Repeated yeast infections—while uncomfortable—rarely lead to this type of damage unlessthey’re chronic and left untreated. But surgical procedures are often the bigger issues… things like dilation and curettage (D&C), fibroid removals, cesarean sections, oryes… previous pregnancy terminations.”
My fingers tapped the armrest slowly… deliberately.
Zonnique was now staring straight ahead, her expression blank. Her eyes had glossed over like she wanted to disappear.
“You saidhighlyunlikely… meaning impossible?” I asked, making sure I heard him correctly.
“I—uh…” Dr. Fairchild stumbled over his words. “I wouldn’t say impossible, sir. Just extremely improbable. The chances of natural conception are—”
“Numbers!” I demanded, my irritation flaring. “Stop dancing around the shit and give me numbers.”
He swallowed hard. “Less than five percent.”
The words left his mouth so quietly, it was almost like he wanted to snatch them back before they reached me.
Zonnique’s hand flew to her chest. “Five percent?” she shrieked. “You can’t be serious. There has to be some kind of mistake! I’m healthy! I’ve never had any problems!”
I slowly turned toward her, anger boiling beneath my skin.
“So, after all this time—all them nights you had me wasting energy, faking moans, and donating perfectly good nut to a lost cause—thisis the fuckin’ result?”
Her mouth dropped open.
I scoffed, my eyes burning into her. “I could’ve been shooting blanks into a sock and walked away less disappointed.”
Zonnique folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Wow. So that’s how you gon’ play it?”
“Did I stutter?” I leaned back in my chair. “You should’ve come with a damn recall notice stamped across your ovaries.”
Was that out of pocket?
Hell yeah.
But I was fuckin’ furious, and when I got like that, I didn’t do gentle; I did brutally honest.
As far as I was concerned, Zonnique had sold me a dream with a busted foundation, then sat there looking shocked because the whole damn plan had collapsed before we could build on it.
“Mr. Belvior, please understand—” Dr. Fairchild began.
“No,youunderstand,” I interjected, voice like ice on steel. “I’ve got board meetings, hostile takeovers, and niggas trying to dismantle my empire every other week, and here I am,blessingsomebody with the kind of dick that could bring a corpse back to life, and she can’t even deliver the one thing I actually need.”
