Chapter 2 - THE NINETY-FIVE-THOUSAND-DOLLAR FAVOR
The argument about the SUV began three days before the wedding.
I had been chief financial officer of Hernandez Hospitality Group for only four months.
My father started the Scottsdale company twenty-eight years earlier with one small conference hotel near the airport. By the time I came aboard, we managed four boutique properties, two wedding venues, and a catering company employing more than a hundred people across Arizona.
Roberto was still chairman.
My mother handled community events.
Fernanda carried the title of brand-development director.
That title had gradually become fiction.
She appeared at openings, posed for social media photographs, entertained clients occasionally, and submitted expenses with the confidence of someone who believed the company existed partly to maintain her lifestyle.
I had spent ten years working in corporate finance in Phoenix precisely because I did not want to work for my father.
Then our longtime controller retired and Roberto asked me to help stabilize the business before a planned refinancing.
“Six months,” I told Alejandro.
He had laughed.
“Nobody joins a family company for six months.”
He was right.
Almost immediately I found loose expense controls, undocumented family reimbursements, and a habit Roberto described as “keeping things flexible.”
Fernanda hated every correction I made.
The SUV request arrived in my inbox Tuesday morning.
2026 Luxury Utility Vehicle — Executive Brand Transportation.
Cost: $94,870 before tax.
Requested user: Fernanda Hernandez.
Business justification: Client-facing transportation, event appearances, promotional content.
I walked into her office.
“No.”
She looked up from her phone.
“You haven’t even read it.”
“I did.”
“Then you know I need it.”
“You have a two-year-old Lexus.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“That is not a business reason.”
She leaned back.
“Dad already approved it.”
“Purchases over fifty thousand need finance approval under the new controls.”
“Your controls.”
“The board-approved controls.”
Her expression changed.
“You’ve been here four months and suddenly you think you own the place.”
“I think the company should stop buying relatives personal toys.”
Fernanda stood.
“You have any idea what I’ve done for this family?”
“If there’s compensation the company owes you, show me.”
She stared at me.
It was the first moment I noticed something beneath the entitlement.
Fear.
“Ask Dad.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Then forget it.”
She walked out.
Roberto entered my office twenty minutes later.
“Approve the vehicle.”
“No.”
“Valeria.”
“She doesn’t need a hundred-thousand-dollar company car.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Then explain it.”
My father looked toward the open office door.
“Not this week.”
My wedding was Saturday.
Every disagreement had been postponed with those three words.
Not this week.
“Then the answer stays no.”
Roberto’s jaw tightened.
“Your sister has been patient with you.”
I almost laughed.
“About what?”
“About how you’ve changed things.”
“Requiring receipts is not oppression.”
“This family worked before you came back.”
“Then you shouldn’t need me.”
Dad leaned closer to my desk.
“Buy the car.”
I looked directly at him.
“No.”
He walked out without another word.
That evening, Fernanda sent me a message:
Hope playing CFO is worth making enemies right before your wedding.
I showed Alejandro.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
“She’s dramatic.”
“You always say that.”
He was right too.
Fernanda had been dramatic when we were children.
Dramatic when she borrowed clothes without asking.
Dramatic when she crashed my first car.
Dramatic when she screamed through my college graduation because our parents bought me a laptop and bought her nothing.
Calling her dramatic had become an efficient way to avoid naming what she actually did.
I put the phone away.
May you like
“After the wedding, I’m cleaning all of this up.”
I had no idea Fernanda had already decided the wedding was where she would punish me for starting.
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