She could be the perfect asset for the Bratva as well as the perfect wife for me. If I was bringing her into this, there was no way I was doing it without laying down my claim right from the beginning. No way was I letting her stride into the midst of my Russian colleagues, half of whom were a hairs breadth away from being Tartars, and they thought anything that they wanted was theirs for the taking. Well no one was getting Elizabeth, except me.
“Champagne, please. Tattinger. Blanc de Blanc. Bring the bottle.”
“And fish and chips, please.”
I grinned at her order. Scanning down the menu, she could have chosen anything from oysters to sirloin steak. It wasn’t that kind of day. “For both of us,” I confirmed, doubling the order and handing back the menu.
The waiter bobbed and smiled and exited, trained in the art of being as unobtrusive as the standard English toff likes his waiters to be. Seen and not heard, unless addressed directly, in which case an appropriate level of instant camaraderie is to be expected and only genuine warmth will do.
When we were alone again, Elizabeth tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly as she leaned back in her seat, folding her arms over her chest. “What are we celebrating, the locker’s a bust?”
I shifted in towards her, leaning my elbows on the table top and it tilted dramatically under my weight. “Us. You. Freedom from Sutherland.”
Beneath the table she stretched her leg out long, to rub our calves together, and she folded her arms neatly onto the table top, shifting her plate and cutlery an inch forward to mirror me without causing a dinning wear related incident. “Us?”
Her eyes held mine, and I could see the sharpness in them. She was ready to defend herself, to guard her heart if she had to. But I would never hurt her.
“Us,” I repeated, voice solid and unshakable. She had to hear the truth in my voice. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. That makes this worth a celebration.”
She laughed, smile glinting. “Let me get this straight, we’re toasting me becoming a notch on your bedpost?”
My nose scrunched up sharply. I hated that she’d even joke about that, but I held my tongue as the waiter reappeared with and ice bucket and two glasses, along with the bottle. I clenched my fist as he set to fiddling with the foil, the wire cage, the cork. How long did it take a man to open a freaking bottle?
“Just leave it. I’ll do it. Thank you.”
“Very good, sir.”
“That’s not what I meant at all Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth shook her head, smile still gleaming. She knew, I could tell that, but she wanted to hear me say it, and there was no way on this earth that I wasn’t going to. “Isn’t it?”
“No.”
I popped the cork and poured, watching the dense fizz rise up the sides and I plunged the thick, heavy bottle back into the ice before I handed Elizabeth a glass.
“We’re toasting the future. The pair of us together, working side by side.”
“Just working?”
“Not just working.”
I smiled. I’d thought about saying this so many ways. I’d stayed awake going over and over what it would be like to finally tell her I wanted her, that I was serious about us being together, whatever it took. “I know it’s still new to you, but I don’t know what my life would be without you in it. I don’t want to go back to not having you right by my side.”
Infuriatingly, Elizabeth’s face was nearly impossible to read. She was hiding behind her thin glass, and she took a sip calculated just so she didn’t have to say anything immediately.
Like I always knew, she was a clever one. And I loved her for it.
The waiter appeared again, setting down our plates. Elizabeth looked immensely pleased with the large piece of battered cod on her plate, and plucked one of the fat, steaming chips from her plate to dunk in the dish of tartar sauce, her other hand shielding her mouth as she slipped it in between her lips.
“Thank you so much.”
Her smile stayed until the waiter left again, and then she leaned in.
“Are you asking me to stay with you, Max?”
“I’m not asking. It’s non-negotiable.”
She laughed again, softly, but she reached out across the table to curl her fingers into mine.
“If I stay with you, it has to be because I want to, not because I have to.”
“I agree. You should absolutely want to. I can think of a few ways to make that happen.”
Elizabeth looked down at her glass, her fingers circled around the thin stem of it, playing the lady we both knew she wasn’t really, underneath the sheen. “Oh really? Maxim, I don’t have anything of my own right now. I literally have the clothes on my back. You burned most of them, and ripped the rest.”