4: My name

Getting Angel into the car was easy. The hardest part was getting her to reply to Calvin with more than one-word answers. His angel had not spoken to him since his driver came around to pick them up. Calvin wanted to hear her voice again.

“How old are you?” he asked.

No reply. His angel curled against the window, and her arms wrapped around herself. Tapping on a button by his side, a black screen rolled up to provide them some privacy from the driver. The silence was starting to get to him. Calvin was a loud man like the rest of his siblings. He loved noise, music, and talking.

As a businessman, he knew how to work the crowd in his favour, but this woman was difficult.

“What’s your favourite colour?”

Nothing.

“What’s your favourite food?”

Her head snapped to him. Unmasked anger burned beneath her gaze. “Can you stop?” she croaked out. She shivered violently, and her whole body shook. He wished he could do more for her than offering an oversized jacket, but the only option was taking her to his penthouse. “As much as I appreciate what you did for me, this is not a date. I am not trying to get to know you. I just want to go home. Please. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you’re sorry, don’t ask me these questions.”

Pinching her fingers together, she took deep breaths, and his lips twitched in a small smile to calm her down. His jacket swallowed her frame, but it did nothing to help her against the cold. The first thing he did once they slipped into the backseat was to ask his driver to turn on the heater.

“I have a room around the corner. We could get you settled there while my assistant—” Calvin stopped himself when her brows shot up.

By a room, he meant his penthouse in his hotel. But he did not want to let the pretty stranger know that. She was among the few women who didn’t recognise him as a McKenna. His father had transferred ownership of the hotel to him on his twenty-first birthday.

“I don’t think you want to be walking around in this, do you?” Slowly, her head moved left, then right. “I thought so too, Angel. You will wait in the room while I get someone to grab you new clothes.”

“Thanks,” she replied. Calvin thought she looked cute with her arms stuck inside his jacket pockets. Her teeth dug into her lower lip, and she sighed softly. “I’m sorry for raising my voice earlier. Wrong timing.”

“No worries. I was annoying.”

His angel laughed for the first time. It must have been one of the most pleasant sounds he had heard. Their eyes met, grey to blue. She rubbed her palms over her knees and looked away.

“So… do you have anyone to call?” he asked, mostly so he could hear her voice again.

“My mum. She must be worried.” She brought her phone from a hidden pocket in her dress, and her lips puckered in the cutest frown. She didn’t have to try hard like Diane to impress him. She was sexy in her cute way. He peeked over her shoulder and saw the screen of her phone was blank. “I think the rain messed up my phone.”

“You could use mine. I don’t mind.”

“I’ve already bothered you enough,” she replied without looking up. Calvin didn’t answer her. He dropped his phone in the space between them. Seconds passed, and she picked it up. “Thanks.”

His angel’s voice was quiet as she spoke to her mother. Calvin didn’t want to be nosy, but his ears strained to pick out her words. He frowned when she told her mother the rain caught her, that she was stuck in traffic and would be late home. And he could only wonder why she chose to lie about something so important.

For fuck’s sake, she was almost raped by those psychos. His parents would burn the city to the ground trying to find the bastard who would dare to touch their kids. And he had security who would show up whenever he requested them.

Angel’s forefinger jerked each time she lied to her mother. He wasn’t joking when he said he would call her that. Her new name wasn’t the only exciting thing about her. Her whole existence was.

A writer, huh? Maybe they could help each other.

The call went on for a few more seconds and ended. She dropped the phone where she had picked it from. No one spoke, even when the car stopped moving. He was confident she knew he overheard her call, but he didn’t know if it was okay to bring it up. It was not his place or business.

In the end, he patted his knee. “We are here.”

Angel’s eyes met his briefly, and she smiled. He opened the side of her door for her, keeping a safe distance between them as they walked into the building. Given the rain that had fallen earlier, the place was cooler than it usually was. Most people had also retired to their homes, so nobody was loitering around the place. The receptionist bowed when he brushed past the counter, and he sent her a tight smile. She couldn’t ruin his act. Maybe she had already.

They stopped in front of the elevator, and Angel was still staring at him with suspicion. “I come here quite often,” he tried to explain. Primarily for business purposes and the occasional tumble in the sheets with random fuckable women. Never in his penthouse but in one of the biggest rooms. “A bit popular here.”

Angel laughed, but it was fake to his ears. The elevator pinged and slid open, saving him the embarrassment of explaining further. Angel took to the other side of the elevator, and her hands curled around his expensive black jacket. Her side profile suggested she was exhausted, and he wanted to do his best to relieve her of the invisible weight she carried around.

The elevator stopped at the floor to his penthouse. Calvin stepped out first, and she followed suit. Their footsteps bounced off the wall, and his mind desperately worked to find an interesting subject to fill the quiet. Thankfully, they reached the door to his apartment, and he inserted his keycard.

Angel stepped inside and stopped. Growing up in a wealthy home meant he was used to comfort and luxury, but she looked stunned. The living room was too large for one person, but he loved the extra space. Sometimes, him and his siblings would hide out here for a weekend getaway.

The floor-to-ceiling glass walls revealed the city. And at this time of the day, the thousand and one lights shining from other houses in the distance created the perfect backdrop for his living room. He nudged his guest with his shoulder, and she faked a laugh. God, he wanted to hear her real laughter. It was purer, richer, and warming.

“Let me show you to the room.”

“Oh. I have a room already? Okay,” she answered. He stepped ahead of her to lead the way, but she called him back in the softest voice. “I didn’t get your name, sir.”

Calvin’s head whipped back. Angel had to stop calling him sir. He was young, not even up to thirty years old. The only time he wanted her calling him sir was if they were exploring an office kink. Crap.

Where did that thought come from?

She did that thing with the lip again, sinking her teeth into the corner of the succulent flesh, and blood raced to his groin. He needed to call Diane after this thing ended and fuck the shit out of her. Besides, she had a lot of making up to do for standing him up.

“Please, stop calling me sir.”

“I don’t know your name,” she murmured.

“And I don’t know yours, either,” Calvin countered. This was the perfect opening to get her identity, at least a first name. But his shoulders sagged at the intense look of stubbornness in her eyes. This woman wasn’t going to give Calvin her name, no matter what he said or did for her. “Kyle.”

Angel jumped. He didn’t like how unsettled she was, but there was only so much he could do.

“What?”

“My name,” he replied. “My name is Kyle.”