Never Judge

To avoid suspicion Cedric got off the elevator at a lower floor before finally taking the stairs. He had asked Leon to turn off all the cameras in the top five floors of Constellation Resorts in order to avoid any evidence of his identity from surfacing. 

As he entered the fire exit stairs he heard muffled voices. He wouldn't normally listen in, but something caught his attention. A female voice calling out Ian's name. He knew that it could be any other Ian, but he was curious and the voices were coming from the direction he was headed so he silently made his way up a few more flights of stairs until he could finally hear the people more clearly.

"Ian." A female voice called out.

"Jas." Cedric heard Ian say.

"Please, Ian." To Cedric it seemed that the woman's voice he had heard was Ian's childhood friend, Jasmine Ortega. She was not just a childhood friend, but an ex-girlfriend as well, so Cedric catching Jas and Ian in the stairwell talking in whispers and calling out each other's names made Cedric suspicious.

"No, Jas." Ian suddenly said in a stern tone.

"But Ian, you need to help me with this, you promised. You promised to always be there for me." Jas begged.

Cedric breathed a sigh of relief as it seemed that Jas and Ian were not doing what he had initially suspected.

"Jas, what you want me to do is impossible." Ian told Jas as Cedric heard the woman sobbing.

"Jas, don't cry, you know Damien and I can't stand it when you cry." Ian said with a sigh. 

"Ian, you know how important he is to me. He is my cousin. You have to save him." Jas begged.

"Jas, he has hurt people, I can't save him. Plus it's not me you should beg, go beg my boss." Ian told Jas coldly.

"My cousin will be ruined. His father isn't a nice person either, nor is his wife. Why is the CEO targeting my cousin?" Jas asked in an angry tone.

"Jas, you shouldn't even know this. Do you have any idea how much trouble I will be in if my boss found out that you knew he was behind this?" Ian asked Jas.

"I won't tell anyone." Jas promised Ian. "Plus it's not your fault that I went looking for you that night."

"The fact that I met up with you that night is enough to get me into trouble. Jas, you need to stop doing this." Ian said with a sigh.

Cedric became even more curious when Ian mentioned that he had met up with Jas. What was Ian doing? He had a child on the way and yet he was still fooling around with Jas.

"I needed you. You're the only one that understands what I am going through." Jas said.

"Jas, just go." Ian finally said.

"Promise me you will talk to your boss." Jas said sternly.

"I will find a way to talk to him, but go. If anyone sees us here they will suspect something." Ian told her.

"Fine." Jas said. 

Cedric could hear her heels walking away as a door finally slammed shut.

When the stairwell was finally quiet Cedric heard Ian sigh and tap something on his phone. Cedric was waiting for Ian to leave when his phone began to ring.

"Who's there?" Ian called out as the ringing sound continued. Cedric cursed that he forgot to place his phone on silent mode. 

"Calm down, it's me." Cedric said as he climbed up the last flight of stairs.

"You heard?" Ian asked Cedric nervously.

"Yes, I did. At first I thought you were doing something nasty, luckily you weren't." Cedric said as he walked ahead up another flight.

"It's not what you think it is." Ian said in an attempt to salvage his situation. 

From his reaction, Cedric could clearly see how he was struggling to come up with a valid explanation for everything he had said to Jas. 

"Wait till we're in the room." Cedric said as he pushed the fire escape door open and walked down the VIP hallway.

Two bodyguards were standing by the door, they simply nodded to Cedric and Ian as they passed and entered the Presidential Suite.

"You're my right hand man and one of my best friends." Cedric began to say as he walked over to pick out a suit to change into. "Even if you betray me, I will always allow you to save face. Anyone could have heard us in the stairwell or the hallway. Now you can explain."

"Jas, she's, well she's…" Ian began as he struggled to explain the situation to Cedric.

"Are you cheating on Nicole?" Cedric asked, unable to resist the burning question in his mind.

"No, I wouldn't cheat on Nicole, she is my everything." Ian immediately said as he heard Cedric's question.

"Then why are you having clandestine meetings with Jas, your ex-girlfriend and childhood sweetheart?" Cedric asked.

"Give me a chance to start at the beginning." Ian requested.

"Go." Cedric said as he walked into the bathroom to change.

"Jasmine is cousins with Carlo Juan, by his father's side." Ian finally confessed. 

"How did she find out that I was behind the attacks against him?" Cedric asked.

"It was after the fashion show. I was arranging everything when Damien called, Jas was having one of her errrr... incidents." Ian explained as he hesitated to mention the last part.

"What are these incidents?" Cedric asked, curious as to what could make Ian leave his work and go to a woman that was not his girlfriend.

"When we were younger, Jasmine was forced to do something she didn't want." Ian explained.

"Something?" Cedric asked.

"She had just turned eighteen, we weren't together, she wanted to catch my attention so she dated this guy who was a known playboy." Ian explained.

"It's not Alexi is it?" Cedric asked as he came out of the bathroom, dressed in designer clothes from head to toe.