Never Judge

"Our eldest child is indeed married." At that a flurry of whispers could be heard coming from the crowd.

"They do live together as husband and wife in their own home, where we are keeping them company for the time being. They are in a very harmonious marriage and are very much in love." Emilio Reyes III announced.

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"You may ask questions now." The host announced.

"Sir! When did they get married?" A reporter asked.

"Five years ago." Emilio Reyes answered without hesitation. The crowd was shocked. All this while they thought that the couple had been married recently.

"Sir, is it an arranged marriage?" Another reporter asked.

"The Reyes family never engages in such things. We believe our children have the right to marry for love." Emilio answered.

"Does that apply for Miss Ayanna as well?" The reporter asked.

"Yes." Emilio answered.

"Sir, is the young Mrs. Reyes from a reputable family?" A reporter asked.

This time Priscilla Reyes grabbed the mic and answered instead.

"My daughter in law is reputable. My son loves her and that's what matters. I never even looked into her family background." Priscilla said as if daring the reporters to question Adrianna's integrity.

"Sir, Madam, then what can you say about the relationship between your son and a Mrs. Adrianna Hernandez-Reyes? There were rumors in the past that your son had fallen for her." A reporter finally asked.

"Those questions have been answered before. We have a business partnership with Island's Inc. and Adrianna is a good friend of Ayanna." Emilio Reyes said clearly.

"That's all the time we have. Mr. and Mrs. Reyes are incredibly busy so we will end the press con here." The host said as Adrianna closed the video on her phone.

At Mor Co. Cedric had been trying to call Adrianna after he heard about the incident at the cafe. If it weren't for Mia having already told him Adrianna was safe he would have driven to the mall himself to pick her up.

Finally Adrianna picked up his call.

"Honey, I'm on my way home with Veronica. She said she asked to be picked up there." Adrianna told Cedric over the phone.

Cedric was a bit surprised by her tender tone, when they had just fought at the cafe.

"Alright. Mom and Dad released a statement to the press. They didn't say who we are, they just confirmed that we were married." Cedric said.

"I know, Veronica and I saw the whole thing in the car." Adrianna said.

Cedric could sense that his wife was happy at the other end of the line. So he said goodbye and dropped the call.

The next day Adrianna had a meeting with Anton Cruz and his team. Unfortunately this meant that Lorisa was coming along, she met Anton while working at his company as an intern, Anton was already thirty at the time and there was an eight year age gap between them. Lorisa continued to work at Anton's company even after they got married.

The meeting was held in Anton's office in the business district of the capital. Mia drove Adrianna in the least glaring of their cars, an older Audi. This car however, like all of Cedric's cars had been upgraded to withstand bullets and a crash, of course Mia's team followed undercover as they drove to the meeting place.

Adrianna brought over a marketing, sales, and operations manager who would be working on the project. She was quite confident with the team she had assembled as they seemed to be the most capable ones in Island's Inc. based on Adrianna's observations.

They were escorted into the meeting room to wait after a while Lorisa and Anton arrived. Lorisa looked at Adrianna from head to toe, but didn't say anything. It seemed her husband had warned her to behave.

"Miss Adrianna, it seems you have quite the close relationship with Miss Reyes." Anton Cruz said in an attempt to suck up to Adrianna.

"She's a friend." Adrianna flatly answered. ��Shall we get on to business?" Adrianna said shifting the discussion to work.

The meeting ended on a peaceful note with Lorisa being very professional about their meeting, however when the meeting ended and Adrianna excused herself to go to the ladies' room, Lorisa followed.

While she was washing her hands Lorisa approached her.

"Do you think you're so high and mighty now that the Reyeses even mentioned your name in a press conference?" Lorisa asked as she pushed Adrianna.

"I'm here for work Lorisa, not to fight." Adrianna said in an attempt to keep the peace.

"You're still a poor man's wife, you're still the daughter of a third son. You are still nothing." Lorisa said pushing her again.

"If I wasn't mistaken, back in university you were chasing after Cedric. You were the one head over heels with him." Adrianna scoffed.

"I saw him for the pupper he truly is." Lorisa said, crossing her arms.

"Someday, I'll be powerful enough to pay you ten fold the ridicule you have thrown my way." Adrianna said as she marched out of the ladies' room.

After their encounter Adrianna did not expect to see Lorisa after this since her team would be handling the project and she would only interact with the Cruz couple towards the end. It came to a surprise to Adrianna when her sales manager came over to her office after a week saying that the Cruz camp claimed that they weren't sticking to the contract and that they had to pay damages.