DURING the longest two weeks of her life, Billie followed Alexei’s every move across the globe, for the pursuit of the paparazzi ensured that everything he did was reported in the tabloid press.
So, Billie got to know that Alexei stayed up two nights in succession at a Monaco casino gaming with a bunch of male friends. Then, after he went out to a fashionable nightclub in London she lay awake wondering whether, even though he had arrived and left alone, he had been with other women inside? Or indeed if at some more discreet location a woman had waited patiently for his visit. For the sake of her own sanity she tried not to read any more of the humiliating articles that speculated about the state and nature of the Drakos marriage.
All too many gossip columnists decided that Alexei had mar
