Two words changed everything.

Neville nodded slowly, processing this new information.

No memory meant no awkward conversations about what had happened.

No memory meant no need to explain why Neville had stayed instead of finding a way to escape.

No memory meant...

No memory meant Grayson was back to his usual self.

Something cold and bitter twistedly stabbed him in the chest.

Call it selfishness.

Call it self-preservation.

If he doesn’t remember, then I don’t need to say anything either.

After all, what was there to say?

Nothing.

So, let this clueless man be completely clueless for the rest of his life.

"I see," Neville said in a flat tone.

Grayson lowered his hands, and his expression had changed again somewhere that Neville didn’t see. He knew that something must have happened. He knew that Neville was carefully hiding it, and he had to force it out if he wanted to know about it.

But before either of them could speak, Grayson’s nose smelled something.

In one fluid motion, he closed the distance between the couches and grabbed Neville’s wrist. He pulled him closer with a grip that was firm but not painful.

"You’re not a recessive."

His ocean-blue eyes widened, and he felt his heart stutter in nervousness.

It seemed that his pheromones had leaked during his sleep, even though he already made sure that there wouldn’t be any remaining traces around the penthouse.

Grayson’s grip tightened a little, his thumb pressing against the pulse point on Neville’s inner wrist. With the unchecked pheromones leaking in real time, Neville knew he couldn’t hide it anymore.

Neville’s mind raced through a dozen possible responses, but he knew that it was pointless to deny it. And somewhere in the back of his mind, a small, petty voice reminded him of all the things that had happened over the past seven days.

If he wants to discriminate against omegas now that he was awake, after everything—

"Whether I’m a dominant or not isn’t important," Neville said, his voice cold enough to frost the entire house.

He met Grayson’s gaze directly, refusing to look away as his eyes turned bloodshot in indignation.

"If you want to fire me, then so be it."

Grayson’s eyes wavered as his grip on Neville’s wrist loosened slightly, as if his words had taken him aback.

In truth, Grayson just asked Neville this question, hoping to provoke him into revealing more about what had happened during those missing seven days. The calmness on Neville’s face was driving him mad, and an angry Neville might let something slip.

But faced with that ice-cold gaze, that quiet defiance, Grayson felt his heart constrict painfully. The look in those ocean-blue eyes wasn’t just anger. He looked like he had wronged him, hurt him deeper with his actions and words.

What did I do?

The question burned in his mind, but the words died on his lips.

He released Neville’s wrist and looked down at the mark his grip had left. There were red marks on his fingers that had pressed too hard against pale skin. The sight made him mournfully reflect on what he had done.

Grayson stood straight abruptly, nearly knocking his knee against the table in his haste. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Wait here."

He disappeared down the hallway before Neville could respond, leaving the younger man to stare after him in confusion.

Neville rubbed his wrist absently, feeling the slight sting on the marks.

It wasn’t painful, but it was unexpected. Grayson’s reaction after seeing the marks was unexpected, too.

What is he playing at?

The sound of doors opening and closing echoed from somewhere deeper in the penthouse.

Neville took the opportunity to glance around the living room and sighed.

He had cleaned as best he could, but there were still some signs of what had happened, especially the dried-up mark that barely faded on the cushion on the couch that he was sitting on. He had to flip it to make it not obvious.

Grayson returned with a small medical kit in his hands. He settled back onto the couch beside Neville. They were close enough that Neville could feel the warmth he dearly missed and opened the kit.

"Give me your wrist."

Neville hesitated for a moment before extending his arm.

Grayson took it gently this time, cradling Neville’s hand in his larger palm as if it were something fragile. A small tube of soothing ointment appeared, and Grayson began applying it to the reddened marks gently and carefully.

"Can you tell me what happened here?" Grayson asked, his voice pitched low and coaxing.

He didn’t look up, seemingly focused entirely on the ointment and Neville’s skin. But Neville could feel that he was really begging him for answers and that he didn’t mean what he did earlier.

"Nothing much," Neville said flatly, looking away toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He could see the vast ocean beyond the glass, flying cars streaking past in the middle distance.

He was looking at anything but at those silver eyes.

Grayson’s hands stilled on his wrist. "Do you know why the surveillance was destroyed?"

"There was a surveillance?"

Neville blurted before he could stop them. His head whipped around to face Grayson, and his eyes went wide as if hearing this information for the first time. He looked around the living room with poorly concealed panic, as if expecting hidden cameras to materialize from the walls.

Oh no.

If there was surveillance—if it recorded everything before it was destroyed—

A lot of things flashed and spiraled through his mind.

Their intimate moments.

Their kisses.

Their almost—

If he saw those, what more could he say for himself?

What—

A warm hand settled on his shoulder, grounding him.

"Calm down." Grayson’s voice gently said as he patted him. "I had them installed because I kept losing some of my memory at certain times. Sometimes it was random, and that had always been... difficult."

Neville forced himself to take a breath.

Then another.

His heart began to beat normally.

Since the surveillance is gone, whatever it had recorded must have been destroyed, which is why Grayson was desperately asking him for information.

Therefore, no one knows what happened here except for him.

And Grayson, who remembered nothing.

This was an opportunity.

A chance to maintain their boss-employee relationship.

A chance to get back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened.

A chance to collect his broken feelings, move on, and forget it completely.

A clean break from this bastard.

"I see," Neville said as his expression returned to normal. "That makes sense."