Page 61 of Worth the Scandal
“The one that killed her,” he says quietly.
My heart stutters. “Wait—what?” That’s not what the report said, it said Darcy died days later from completely unrelated health issues.
I swallow. “Your girlfriend who passed,” I clarify, stumbling. “From an aneurysm.”
Caleb doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t flinch.
Instead, his voice goes flat.
“Who do you think was driving that night, Scarlett?”
The words don’t just hit—they hollow me out. I suspected as much but hearing it, having the words trickle into my ears is harder to hear than I thought.
I blink, unsure I even heard him right. “You’re saying… Asher? Why would she be in the car with Asher if she was your girl?”
He nods once.
“She wanted to leave the party early, we had a fight she saw Kingston leaving and grabbed a lift with him. She died a week later in the kitchen from a brain aneurysm. I found her when I got home from training. The doctors said it was unrelated. Whispers of a pre-existing condition. But she was fine before the crash, before that fuckwit drove his Porsche into a tree, he’s always got some hotted up car he’s flying around in.”
I try to breathe, but it’s like the air’s been ripped from my lungs. My skin burns cold. This wasn’t what I was expecting—okay it was but it wasn’t. I’m not sure what I was expecting but this—being right, was not it.
“And he was drunk?” I ask, barely above a whisper. The article insinuated it was a driver under the influence that caused the crash.
Caleb finally looks at me.
“Blew just under the limit,” he says. “But out of it. High, maybe. Nobody could prove it. He didn’t say much—just stopped showing up for a few months lost his chance to debut then came back. Like nothing really happened. Wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t fight it. He locked it up like it never happened. He was supposed to start on the bench that season but the crash set him back another season he had to do some mandatory rehab crap got away with a slap on the wrist, everyone thought he was injured …” He cuts me a sharp glance. “The cops couldn’t prove anything no one was badly hurt in the accident just a few bruises, just looked like he took a corner too fast. But I know he was on something. Anyone who knew anything had to sign an NDA after his lawyer cleaned up the shit show and that was that. I lost my girl and Kingston got to live his same old life.”
Everything around me stills. The stadium, the wind, the distant chirp of whistles from the field below. It all drops away. If what Caleb is saying is true then I really don’t know my Asher.This whole version I know is a fraud, fake name, checkered past—blood on his hands.
My thoughts scatter and crash, blood roaring in my ears.
Darcy. I’d never met her but I’d seen enough of them in the articles to know how beautiful she was and how happy Caleb looked.
No wonder Caleb had a strong distaste for Asher and I, this whole time I dangled whatever we were in front of him on a string, and Asher let me.
All the pieces of the puzzle start coming into place.
I see it now—the fragments I missed.
The panic in his eyes when I’d swerve too hard on a memory.
The way his fingers twitched when someone mentioned the past. His control in the car, his focus.
The therapy. The late-night runs. The avoidance.
The guilt. Never drinking.
Oh my god. The guilt wasn’t about me, and our no names no strings night—It was deeper.
He was carrying something I didn’t even know how to name. Something he would’ve happily never told me about.
And now I do.
“You think it was his fault then, how can you be so sure he wasn’t sober,” I say, my voice shaking. I’m trying to make excuses, I know that—I’m trying not to look like a stupid little fool.
Caleb shrugs one shoulder. “I think he blames himself, but that’s not good enough. Doesn’t matter what the doctors said. Doesn’t matter if it’s true. He thinks he killed her and so do I.”
I press my palms into my thighs, grounding myself. My chest is aching and the pit of my stomach has become a battlefield with pops, gurgles and all sounds telling me my anxiety is taking off “And you hate him for it.”
