Never Judge

Chapter 20

The next morning Adrianna still refused to speak to Cedric, even on their way to work she didn't say a word. Last night Cedric ended up sleeping on the couch since Adrianna was mad at him.

The photo of him and Eric was still one of the hottest topics on social media. When Asia Hernandez saw this she was furious. She was one of the moderators of Eric Chan's Fan Club and she hadn't even had the chance to meet the actor. She could only worship him from afar.

She threw her phone across her father's office and screamed.

Fredrik and John who were in the same room jumped in surprise.

"What's wrong?" Her eldest brother, John Hernandez, asked.

"That good for nothing Cedric Reyes and our selfish cousin Adrianna!" Asia shouted.

"What did they do this time?" John asked.

"They stole my idol away from me!" Asia was spoiled by her family, no matter how shallow her problem was they would do anything to help.

"Hey dad, why don't we give Adrianna the Elisia Mall project? Didn't you say we were having issues there? The Passion branches there are doing extremely bad and we even have rental issues." John suggested.

"Please dad? Not only will she be too busy to meet up with famous actors but she'll also be ruined in our family's eyes!" Asia jumped at her brother's suggestion.

"Well since she isn't handling a project right now and no one is handling the Elisia Mall project, it does make sense to put a member of the family in charge of it. Elisia is the largest mall chain in the country, no one has ever been able to beat them in a deal." Fredrik said, giving his approval.

"I'll call her up dad!" Asia said. She was very excited to see Adrianna fail.

"We won't tell her yet. Tonight we have a family meeting at your grandfather's house. We'll announce it there." Fredrik knew his daughter's grudge against her cousin. He also wanted to secure his children's place as heir's to Island's Inc.

Island's Inc. was the mother company to multiple clothing and shoe brands. It was a legacy brand that had been around for three generations. It was founded by Fredrik's grandfather in their provincial hometown, they would bring in the latest fashion from the capital and sell it at a marked up price. As time went by Island's Inc. evolved from reselling to manufacturing their own clothes and shoes.

Asia belonged to the design department, despite holding a degree in fashion she had no contribution to the designs Island's Inc. released. Her designs were often thrown out at the early approval stages, as a result her brother and father decided not to let her participate in this year's design process.

Adrianna on the other hand who was working in the business planning and marketing department was a rising star in the company. She had developed new ways to attract customers and she had even managed to increase their spending in their stores. John, at his sister's request, had thrown as many problems as possible along her way. He even asked Henry, his younger brother to give Adrianna a clearly unfashionable design to pitch. Adrianna however, had managed to jump even that hurdle.

At Mor Co. Cedric was holding a meeting with the different department directors.

"I would like to announce that if we can continue to improve the performance of every department we will be relaunching Mor Phones. The product development team has guaranteed to me that in a month's time they will have perfected 3 new phones, each for every tier of the market." Cedric said, applying some pressure on the directors.

Soon the room was buzzing with the director's discussing among themselves.

"At the same time we will also be unveiling the new look of Mor Co.'s head office. It will be younger and more modern. As you might have heard by now the famous designer, Veronica, is working on this new image of Mor Co. Not only will our employees be in a fresher environment our building will also be a tourist location. It will be the first office building that Veronica designs. I'm sure you all understand how many offices she has refused to do this for."

The directors were in awe, they had seen Veronica in the office, they assumed that she would only be redesigning the President's office and not the whole building.

"I won't keep any of you. I'm sure you are all busy, you may go." After dismissing the directors he noticed that the Logistics Director remained.

"Did you want to speak to me?" Cedric asked in a cold voice.

"Sir, I apologize for my manager's actions yesterday. I demoted him right after I found out what happened." The director's voice was shaking. He was worried that the president would be mad at him for what Chris had done.

"He's been like that for quite a while already, it isn't your fault." Cedric said, leaning back on his seat.

"Should I fire him sir?" The director asked, eager to please.

"No, I have other plans for him. Put him in a role that demands for manual labor." Cedric ordered.

The director nodded and excused himself.

Cedric returned to the office to find a message from Adrianna: Don't forget the family meeting tonight. Don't be late. Mom and Dad will meet us there.

She was clearly still mad at him.

That night Cedric and Adrianna drove to the Hernandez patriarch's home in silence. Adrianna was still giving Cedric the silent treatment. Cedric could just imagine how furious she would be when she eventually finds out who he actually is.

As they entered the dining room, Adrianna held Cedric's hand. Despite their fight Adrianna wanted to show everyone that she and Cedric were still very much in love and that she stood by her decision to marry him despite their disapproval.

When everyone was complete, Fredrik proceeded to give a report to the family while everyone ate their diner. After Fredrik, members of the family that headed a division also gave a report and mentioned any requests that they had.

Usually this would go for 30 minutes, today after everyone had said their parts Fredrik stood up again.

"As you all know one of the biggest projects we have this year is the Elisia Mall project." Everyone knew that the Elisia Mall project was an extremely difficult project. No one wanted to take this project on due to the nature of the people they had to work with as well as the impact it had on the company.

"Due to the size of the project I would like to have a member of the family directly handle this. I am going to place Adrianna as the project lead on this." Fredrik announced. The room was filled with mixed reactions. Most of the family had no issues with Adrianna, they just didn't approve of her husband, however the others did not like Adrianna at all since Grandpa Hernandez always favored her, that group was happy to see Adrianna take on the doomed project.

"I approve." Grandpa Hernandez said from the head of the table. "I believe that my Adrianna is capable of completing this project."

With her grandfather's approval Adrianna had no choice but to accept and thank her uncle for the opportunity.

When they arrived at home Gracia wanted to complain about what Fredrik just did but Adrianna beat her to it and told everyone that she was tired and didn't want to talk about it.

Cedric chased after her as she ran to their room. He found Adrianna, crying in bed. He lay down beside her and hugged her. She faced him and placed her head on his chest and started to cry.

"They're doing it on purpose Cedric. They want me to fail." Adrianna said between sobs.

"It just seems impossible now honey but I'm sure you'll be able to manage this." He said, trying to comfort his wife.

"You should rest. You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow." Cedric kissed the top of her head as Adrianna continued to cry.

Eventually Adrianna had managed to cry herself to sleep. With his sleeping wife in his arms he sent a message to his father to meet him at the country club for lunch the next day.