I peeled it open again, and rifled inside the envelope, pulling out a brand new passport with Cyrillic lettering on the front. My heart nearly stopped as I turned to the photo page and saw my own picture staring back at me, underneath the name Yelizaveta Toropova.
“Oh my God.”
My heart clenched in my chest. This was my ticket out of England, quite literally.
“Max what is this?” So many things were hitting me all at once. This meant everything, or it might. Was this acceptance into the Bratva? Did he really want me to have his surname? I could barely breathe for all the questions that wanted to tumble out of my mouth.
“Roman made a visit to St Kitts.”
“I don’t understand.” I was practically shaking when he handed me back my champagne and took the envelope off me. I couldn’t stop staring at the passport in my hand.
“You can buy Russian passports there. For enough money.”
I frowned at him, still trying to keep up.
“Legally,” he clarified. “This is legitimate, it’s real. Nothing fake.”
“But, my name?”
“We have people in the deed poll office. It’s helpful when one of us needs to disappear.”
“But… Yelizaveta Toropova?”
“Elizabeth, in Russian. And when we go back to St Petersburg, I hope you will be my wife.”
My ears buzzed with the kind of ringing silence after an explosion and I didn’t dare trust what they thought they’d heard. I felt my eyes widen as I processed what he was telling me.
“Wife?”
“Yes. I want to marry you.”
It felt like I was dreaming when he got down on one knee, looking up into my eyes.
“Elizabeth Harrington, will you give up your life and come away with me? I’m asking for your hand in marriage, because I want you to always be by my side. I love you and I don’t want to spend a day without you.”
I hadn’t dared dream it. Not really. I hadn’t let myself think about him asking me, because I didn’t think he really saw me like that. I was so much younger than him, and maybe he was only having fun.
Stupid to think like that when nothing he’d ever done had suggested it, and I hated that it meant I must have swallowed some of Sutherland’s bullshit about my worth. I frowned at him, still trying to piece it together, not quite letting myself believe it was real.
I felt myself swallow hard, eyes brimming full of tears and my fingers dug into the edge of the cover of the shiny new passport.
“This is.. so I have a visa?”
Maxim all but growled.
“Sweetheart, you have this passport already. You don’t need me for that.”
“But..?”
“Elizabeth. Yelizaveta. Listen to me you daft cow. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have you by my side always. I want us to do everything we’ve done this week over and over again. I want you to travel the world with me, go wherever I go, see whatever I see. I want to take you back to St Petersburg and make a home with you there. I love you and I want to marry you. It’s as simple as that.”
I flung myself at him, arms wrapping tight around his shoulders as I pressed myself against his chest, burying my head so he couldn’t see the tears I couldn’t hold back. He cupped my jaw, tilting my chin up so that I was looking at him again. He kissed me again and again, through my sniffing and laughing, until my smile was too wide to let him. Then he kissed the tracks of my tears over my cheeks, until I turned my head to meet his mouth and kiss him back again.
His hand at the small of my back was the most perfect thing, drawing me into him, solid and strong and warm.
“Oh God, Max. I love you. And I want all of that too.”
“Then just say yes.”
“Yes,” I blurted, far too quickly. “Yes, yes, yes. I can’t wait for you to show me St Petersburg.”
“Good. When we’re back in London, we’ll go and choose a ring.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“Geneva. We have a certain Swiss banker to track down.”
CHAPTER 30
Maxim
The City Airport mainly ran business flights on small planes that could zip in and out of the industrial side of London.
The place was practically a bus station compared to other British airports, one shop, somewhere to get coffee and a fast food place as well as a tiny nod to Duty Free shopping. Given we were both keen to get in and out as under the radar as we could manage, it made the most sense to fly from there.
I traveled on another name. Elizabeth used her new Russian passport. I got a kick out of seeing my surname next to the Russian version of her first name. The way it was meant to be. The way it was going to be, more than just officially, as soon as we got married. When she was my wife, I wouldn’t want to travel on another name. I’d want everyone around us to know that she was mine.