The jet fuel and burnt rubber on the tarmac that filled my lungs when the cabin doors opened smelled just like freedom. This was the start of the rest of our lives together, and I couldn’t wait for it to begin.
EPILOGUE
Elizabeth
Six Months Later
From the bed I could just see the sunlight glinting off the ocean and the impossible blue of the sky. Leaning against the pillows, I rested my eyes, letting the blissfully cool breeze from the air conditioning waft over me.
This was paradise. It had to be.
I didn’t care how many royals had pushed out their babies in St Mary’s Hospital, or the Portland, in London. Even if I’d been able to stay there without getting myself arrested, I wouldn’t swap that view out of the window for gray skies and grubby concrete, even if you paid me.
It might not have mattered so much through last night, when I was in the throws of labor, but it had been a perfect lead up to the birth and this private hospital was more like a hotel. Maxim had been with me the entire time.
And now we had all the space and time we wanted before we went back to the apartment we’d been renting.
I was more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life, but also the most happy.
Maxim was standing at the window with a camera in one hand, and I knew he could see the pale sand of the beach, far below. All the people down there like ants, until he got his zoom lens on them.
“Max, you’re not supposed to be working.”
He looked back to me, smile rising as he walked back over to the bed. “Sweetheart, my love, I am documenting the first day of our son’s life.”
“You better be.”
He set the camera down and stalked back towards me, leaning in to take a long, indulgent kiss. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world, and the yummiest mummy I have ever met.”
He scooped up the tiny, pink-skinned bundle, wrapped in white blankets from the plastic hospital crib next to the bed and sat next to me on the bed, leaning in, so we could both stare adoringly at the tiny miracle we’d created.
His little hat was almost too big for him and he was the most exquisite creature I’d ever seen. Holding him made something in my chest shift painfully, like the world was realigning to centre itself around him, and I didn’t have words to describe the feelings it brought up in me to see Maxim with our son cradled so carefully in his large arms.
“He’s perfect,” I whispered, stroking over his tiny nose with the tip of my finger, and watching him stir slightly at the contact. Already I could see Max’s features starting to show prominence and I ducked my head down to breath in the perfect smell of him, warmth and skin and newness.
“What’s your name, little man?” Maxim asked him softly.
I already knew. “Alexei. Alex for short.”
Maxim smiled. “I like that. Alexei Maximovich Toropov. May he be the first of many sons.”
“Or daughters,” I protested softly.
Max tilted his head and nodded. “Or daughters.”
Alexei squirmed slightly, mouth gaping open on a yawn that turned to him rooting towards me and Maxim handed him over as I helped him latch onto my swollen breast.
Everything was how it was supposed to be.
We’d stay in Florida as long as we wanted, until the seasons turned, Max said. Russia was better in the summer. St Petersburg was perfect when the flowers were in bloom.
On the side were the text books we’d been going through together, starting to teach me the alphabet along with enough conversation to get by and I was soaking it up like a sponge.
I was a mother now as well as a wife, and I was just as involved with the Bratva as Maxim was ever going to be. I knew what was coming, what Valentin had planned, and I was ready to be right by Maxim’s side when it happened, doing all I could. Without them, Maxim never would have found me. I owed them everything I had.
“Tell me about the house in St Petersburg again?”
Maxim draped his arm along the headboard of the bed, over my shoulders, looking down into Alexei’s face just like I was. Neither of us could take our eyes off him. He had us fully transfixed and I didn’t mind in the slightest.
“It sits in a walled garden with a tall gate that you walk through from the street, or drive inside. It’s tall. Three stories, and the attic. Windows either side of the door, with shutters on them. When you come in the front door there’s a staircase that sweeps down. It’s beautiful. Upstairs there is plenty of room for a nursery. Where Alexei will have all his toys.”