The mere thought of it made Neville feel like someone stabbed him in the back. But he chose not to overreact since someone was still in the room.

Lilianna spoke again. "You’re from the secretarial department."

It wasn’t a question. She was sure that he came from the secretarial department.

How did she know? Did Sarah tell her about him?

"Yes, ma’am," Neville replied politely.

"Hmm." She tilted her head, gold hair cascading over one shoulder in a wave of spun sunlight. Her amber eyes studied him with renewed interest. "The one who’s good at cooking?"

Neville felt his ears grow warm. If it was about food, then he was sure that Sarah was the one who talked to her about him. That woman couldn’t keep a secret this ’big’ for the life of her.

"I can cook," he admitted, because denying it would be pointless. "But, it’s nothing special."

"Sarah said you made food with actual ingredients for the department last month." Lilianna’s voice was casual, but her eyes were sharp. "Real ingredients instead of the ones made from nutrient solutions."

"I had the fortune to have access to some actual ingredients." Neville moved a little because he felt a little uncomfortable under her gaze.

"Interesting." She drew out the word, letting it hang in the air between them.

Neville got the distinct impression he was being evaluated for something he didn’t know. The way her gaze lingered on his face, his hands, the rigid line of his shoulders...

What was she looking for?

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the soft beeping of Grayson’s monitoring equipment.

Neville fought the urge to fidget, to adjust his absent glasses, tucked a stray, undyed silver hair on the back of his ears, and did anything that might expose his discomfort. Unlike his comfortable feeling when Grayson’s pheromones were spread around, Lilianna’s were very incompatible with his nose.

His own ocean pheromones wanted to leak out, to fill the space with calming waves, to dismiss any pheromones that Lilianna continued to spread. But he clamped down on that urge.

The last thing he needed was for Lilianna to start asking questions about why an unmarried dominant omega was tending to an unconscious, unmarried dominant alpha.

After a long silence, Lilianna finally said something.

"Tell Bryan something for me," She said, not looking at Neville; her attention was fixated on Grayson’s peaceful sleeping face. Her voice had softened, losing some of its sharpness. "When Grayson wakes up, he needs to call Aunt Gloria. She’s in the Federation right now and couldn’t make it in time, but she’s worried sick."

Aunt Gloria?

"I’ll make sure he gets the message," Neville replied.

Lilianna nodded once and glanced one last time at Grayson, hoping that he would suddenly wake up to greet her. Unfortunately, no matter how long she waited, Grayson continued to sleep, oblivious to her presence.

He her eyebrows slightly furrowed. Her hand curled into a fist at her side, trembling a little before straightening her shoulders as nothing happened.

It seemed that even though he didn’t know her relationship with Grayson, Lilianna surely had some feelings with Grayson.

"Don’t let him work for the meantime," she ordered like the lady of the house. "He’s too stubborn to take care of himself."

Before Neville could respond, she was gone, her footsteps fading down the corridor. The door hissed shut behind her, leaving Neville alone with the unconscious Grayson. She left with too many questions unanswered.

He stared at the closed door for a long moment, his mind racing. His thoughts were a tangled mess. He ended up admitting to himself that just this one time, he was jealous of their unknown relationship.

Lilianna Gringer and Grayson Maxwell.

It just made sense.

Even though they were both alphas, they were both from powerful and prominent families. They probably run in the same circle, and by the way Lilianna behaves, she seems to have been trained in the military, too.

They would have been perfect for each other.

Neville’s hand drifted unconsciously to his lips, and he caught himself just in time, yanking it back down with a frustrated hiss.

Why did it matter?

In the original timeline, Grayson ended up liking Elliot, the omega protagonist with the conveniently tragic backstory, and the ability to make every alpha within a hundred meters fall desperately in love with him.

Lilianna had never been mentioned as a romantic interest at all. She was like a background noise, set dressing, a name that appeared once in a list of attendees at some forgettable social function.

But then again, the original timeline also had the world collapsing because the protagonists were too busy mooning over each other to deal with actual problems like Grayson.

Elliot and Xavier had spent years dancing around their feelings while the plot’s actual conflicts festered and grew. It eventually reached a point where no amount of last-minute heroics could save everything.

Clearly, things in this version weren’t following the script.

And speaking of not following the script...

Neville looked at Grayson’s peaceful sleeping face and felt something complicated stir in his chest. He groaned, slumping deeper into the chair until his spine protested the abuse.

This was why he hated transmigration novels. The rules never made any sense, and the systems were always vague about crucial details. The protagonists invariably stumbled into solutions through sheer luck rather than actual planning.

He missed his old life. He missed his cramped apartment and his dead-end job, and his collection of BL novels that he’d never get to finish. He missed knowing what the rules were, even if those rules had been "work, pay rent, work, and die eventually."

At least that had been predictable.

The door hissed open again, and this time it was Julius who appeared. Julius gave him a brief nod before taking up a position inside the room. His posture seemed relaxed but also alert.

His dark eyes swept over Grayson’s sleeping body. Then looked at the monitoring equipment, then Neville himself.

"Miss Gringer has left the building."