4. The project thief

Wade

Five months ago, if you had told me that I would be married and happy with my wife even with her backstabbing family in the background. I would have told you that the recreational drug which you were taking was too strong and you needed rehab.

But I am exactly in that place.

Married and happy with my wife while her backstabbing family are in the background, eyes green with envy while Maria runs the shows like the f*cking queen that she is.

Yes, I was more than happy about the green with envy part.

When they had selected the projects, they left the least feasible one for her and what did my wife do, she went ahead and conquer the project and it was beautiful.

And now we were at the home of the Patriarch.

“You married a good woman, son.” He nodded to me as he lifted his glass towards my direction.

“The best,” I replied to her grandfather raising my own cup in acknowledgement to his toast as I smiled down at Maria who looked worried.

“What is wrong?” I whispered to her and she lifted her worried eyes to me.

“I might have flopped if I didn’t go through the market trends just before the presentation like you asked me to. This would have ended badly.” She bit her lips worriedly.

She knew what that action of hers does to me even though we have not yet consummated our marriage.

I took a sip from the glass cup only to drop it and then used my hand to remove her lip from between her teeth.

“Those are mine, you are not allowed to scar them,” I tell her as she gaze into my eyes spellbound.

“Besides, you shouldn’t be worried. The crisis was averted and that is one of the reasons why you have me in your corner, to ensure that your back is well covered. I did my job and you did yours too so everything is okay. Don’t stress it.” I kissed her hair.

“You two are so disgustingly cute, emphasis on the disgusting,” Cynthia cooed at us, fluttering her lashes.

“Yes, and I haven’t seen you that way with your husband Cynthia… almost makes me wonder if you had to get married in a rush.”

Cynthia’s teeth clenched together but her husband ignored us and focused on his meal.

“You were the one whom nobody knew about, what if you are after her for just her wealth?” Kennedy demanded.

“We had a pre-nup, did you and your wife have that or you didn’t and that is why you are still tolerating all her…” I turned to Cynthia’s husband, making it clear that my question was for him.

“Wade…” Maria called softly and immediately my words seized.

She was right, I shouldn’t be shoveling her brother’s flaw in his face at a place where they could twist it against me and use it to harm Maria.

“You see Daddy, that is how he has been doing for a while. He is so ill-bred,” Cynthia complained.

“That’s my husband Cynthia that you are referring to, please remember that.” Maria leaned forward on her seat.

It always bring a smile to my lips anytime that I hear her sound protective of me.

“Anyway, how is the low-level entry job treating you, my boy? You know that you didn’t have to start from the ground up. Your wife is a director, I would have easily fit you somewhere,” Austin, the patriarch of the family, asked. He usually ignored the antics of Cynthia and Kennedy which put him in a good place in my book compare to Maria’s father, Jack who does nothing but ignore his daughter and acts most times like she doesn’t exist.

Maria always defended him saying that he was in such a shock after her mother died but I still struggle to understand what level of shock could lead him to abandon his daughter in the midst of vipers that he invited in and how much of a shock can I give to him to make him regain his senses.

“I am actually okay at the level that I started in. I would like to build from there.”

“And what are you building? Dust?” Kennedy snorted.

“No, a true understanding and empathy with the workers there,” I returned glaring at him.

“Wade is right. That is the right way for advancement,” Jack stated absently. “That was what my father did for me too.”

I smiled at the fact that he actually sided me without realizing it.

Against his precious family. All because he was absentminded.

And the fact that Antonia looked like she is sucking a sour lemon was threatening to make this the second highlight of my day.

“Excuse me,” I muttered distracted while my phone buzzed. I brought it out to see an urgent message waiting for me from my CFO.

I left the table and went to give a few commands to him, one that would sustain them a little. I couldn’t keep pushing my return date back to my own company.

I was gone, like ten minutes max.

I returned to the world being flipped over. Cynthia had managed to take the credit for Maria’s work.

How the hell did that happen?

And why did Maria look like she was close to crying.

*************

Marianna

Cynthia has always been a good story teller. One so versatile in her skills now whenever she pulls something new and crazy out of her bag of lies, I am just amazed by the brilliance of the story and not of the lie.

So when she flipped the story that her project was actually mine and mine was hers but we switched close to the end to make a deal between each other and now that we are done and I passed the deal, I am to work on reviving the lowest earning company under grandfather.

Was grandfather happy with the deal? Yes. He even moved me to the company with immediate effect and when I tried to say that nothing of such was planned, Antonia’s eyes promise retribution if I called her daughter out for the liar that she was.

I managed to keep my cool, ignoring Wade and his confusion about how the tables could turn the way it did.

I waited until we got home before I sought Cynthia out.

“You took credit for my work,” I snarled.

Cynthia jumped in shock at my sudden appearance before she rolled her eyes. “Say something that has not happened before.”

“You cannot continue to do this Cynthia, I won’t let you get away with this,” I gritted out. I have not being this furious in a long while.

Cynthia blinked as if she thought did not occur to her. “Sure you will. You cannot correct it now. Daddy would be angry with you for dragging our spats into grandpa’s eyes. You wouldn’t want Dad to be angry now, would you?”

And immediately my shoulders dropped as my weakness was used. Cynthia and Kennedy learnt a long time ago that the best way that I could allow them to get away with anything was to threaten me with my father’s disapproval.

Now they wielded that weakness and knowledge against me better than a chef wields a knife.

“Be a good girl and accept your demotion gratefully because I could have removed you from the company fully but out of the goodness of my heart, I just sent you out of my sight.” Cynthia, pushed my shoulders then her voice went cold.

“How dare you try to gain best project of the year award when you are nothing. Stay out of my way Marianna if you want to survive.” With those words, Cynthia left me in the kitchen silently choking back my tears.

This cannot go on.

I need to find a way to survive because they will take the little I have left if I show them that they can steal my hard work this easy.