Page 138 of The Confidant
Scarlett had called this off though, right?
That was what she’d been telling me tonight, hadn’t she? There couldn’t have been some other revelation about a special calling for her and Xander that she’d decided to turn down.
I ran my hand through my hair as I walked into the entryway of our home and sat down on one of the couches in the living room.
As I laid my head back, my thoughts wandered down another path.
If Scarlett had been the one to turn down this “special calling,” did that mean that Xander had been fine going along with it? Was that why he was always texting her and trying to hang out with her, because he was just fine going along with it all and just wanted to get to know her better?
Because that was just weird. And so similar to all the stories I’d read about Samuel Williams and his spiritual partners.
Should I be thankful that the High Priest had at least picked a girl who was eighteen instead of fourteen this time?
Bash walked into the living room with a bowl of ice cream a minute later. Leaning against the wall, he took a bite of ice cream and asked, “What do you look so disgusted about?”
I shook my head and held up my phone. “I just found out that Pastor Caldwell and the High Priest tried marrying Scarlett off to Xander.”
“What?” Sebastian’s dark eyebrows rose behind his glasses.
I shook my head, still not believing what I’d read in Scarlett’s email. “Apparently, there was some revelation that said how Scarlett was supposed to be spiritual partners with Xander and have his baby.”
“Hold up.” Sebastian crossed the room and held his hand out for my phone. “You said Xander? As in Xander Pierce?”
“Yeah…”
And as he scanned Scarlett’s email, I realized Sebastian didn’t look nearly as shocked as he should. When he was done, he pointed at my phone and said, “That guy needs to be put behind bars.”
“Who? Xander?”
Bash nodded. “He’s a nut job.” When I just frowned in confusion, he added, “When my friend Paxton was roommates with him at Yale, he said Xander had this weird thing for younger girls going on.”
“Younger girls?” I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
“Like, he had this weird obsession with high school girls. Paxton told me that Xander didn’t go to any of the college parties like everyone else in their dorm. Instead, he was always dating girls that were still in high school.”
“Really?” I mean, if he was a college freshman, he couldn’t have been that much older than the high school girls…but it was still a little weird that he was seeking them out. Especially when he had gone to college in a new city, and it wasn’t like he was just visiting his old friends from high school.
“At first, Paxton assumed it was maybe because Xander was just more at their level…like maybe he wasn’t mature enough to date the college-aged girls.” Bash released a low breath and gave me a serious look. “But then it came out that he convinced a sixteen-year-old girl to run off with him and get married.”
“Wait, he got married?” My voice raised an octave.
“Yeah…” Bash nodded. “I don’t think it was legal. It later came out that he had done the same thing with, like, two other girls… But yeah, he’s a creep.”
“But—” I shook my head, not believing what I was hearing. “How is that even possible? Like, how is this not public knowledge?”
Bash rubbed his thumb against his fingers in the “money” gesture. “You can bury a lot of skeletons when your family is loaded.”
“Why didn’t you say anything until now?”
“It happened, like, three years ago, and after he got caught, I honestly thought it stopped.” Bash held up his hands. “And I thought that the people who knew him had been warned. I thought for sure that the High Priest had even disfellowshipped him for a while.” Bash rubbed his cheek. “But I guess that was actually right before the old High Priest died, so maybe no one else knew about it.”
That was the fun thing with The Fold’s policies. A lot of them relied on their leader’s “personal revelation,” and if they chose not to report things, they would claim it fit under a clergy exemption. Having “church royalty” like the Pierces involved in a scandal would bring negative attention to the church. And if there was anything The Fold cared about most, it was their image.
Bash sighed and leaned back against the couch. “In the church’s eyes, he was probably just continuing God’s work—since they have that hidden doctrine about Samuel Williams’ posterity continuing the spiritual partners thing. So they probably figured it was all good as long as he didn’t get caught by anyone.”
I shook my head. “That crap is so messed up.”
He nodded. “And if this kind of stuff is still happening, you really need to find a way to get Scarlett out of it.”
