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 married his PA only because he would retain his sexual freedom with a wife who would appreciate her good fortune in marrying him too much to make unreasonable demands; a practical wife who didn't expect her gorgeous predatory tycoon to become as domesticated as a tabby cat. And, as another columnist quipped, Alexei Drakos was not the sort of guy likely to welcome rules. Alexei had always done what he wanted when he wanted without apology.
Old Drakos history was also dredged up, with Constantine's worst womanising exploits, even while married, spicily presented to entertain the readers even more. Billie felt doubly humiliated when far from f
lattering wedding photos of her, evidently taken with one of their guest's phones, appeared in print. Looking mousey and squat as she did in those horrible snaps she had felt that she was being shown up as the bride any self-respecting Greek tycoon and modern-day sex-symbol would desert.
'I just can't believe the way you're behaving!' Lauren snapped with angry irritation, studying her daughter, who was playing with her son and Skye, the puppy. 'What were you thinking of when you moved back into this stupid little house? You're a Drakos now, you belong at the big swanky mansion next door! Of course people are talking when you're trying to act like the marriage never happened.'
Billie prevented the little black terrier from sinking her teeth into one of Nicky's toys, setting the item aside to be washed. 'I have no intention of moving Nicky into Alexei's house until he acknowledges that he is his son—'
'Oh, don't be more stupid than you can help!' Lauren hissed, her attractive face unattractively lined by her annoyance. As her shrill voice rose in volume the puppy fled behind the sofa. 'Leave the brat here with us and take possession of what's yours. You have the right to live in that villa—you're Alexei's wife!'
Billie glanced coolly at her mother. 'Don't call my son a brat!'
'You know I didn't mean it nastily,' her mother argued. 'After all, Nicky—bless his little heart—is your golden goose. I mean, good grief, getting yourself pregnant was the only thing you did right! Alexei can do and say what he likes, but at the end of the day you will still be the mother of his son and heir and nothing can change that!'
'That kind of offensive talk isn't helping anyone, Lauren,' Hilary interposed, sending her a sister a reproachful look while she soothed and petted the puppy who had crept over to her feet. 'Billie is more interested in saving her marriage than in making a profit. I think she's right to stay here rather than up at the villa, particularly while Alexei believes that Nicky is not his child.'
At that moment, Nicky gave a chuckle of satisfaction. His big brown eyes looked up to his mother for approval and she told him what a beautiful boy he was. Anatalya, having firmly placed herself in Billie's support camp, arrived with the day's newspapers. While the housekeeper bent down to give Nicky her attention, Billie spread the papers across the dining table.
'You shouldn't look at them,' Hilary warned her in the tone of a woman who knew her advice would be ignored. 'They twist the truth and print lies, and it upsets you.'
'I'm not upset and I won't get upset,' Billie vowed, only for the blood to drain from her features while she studied the latest photo of Alexei. There was no chance that what she was looking at was a lie, she reflected wretchedly. If only it had been. With a stunning lack of discretion for a married man, Alexei was seated at a fashionable pavement café on an elegant Parisian boulevard with a very beautiful blonde companion, a woman whom Billie had never expected to see in his company any more. 'Alexei's meeting up with Calisto again!' she cried strickenly before she could think better of that revealing outburst.
'I don't believe you,' Hilary breathed in disbelief, only to stare in dismay at the newspaper pages that her niece spread across her lap.
'I told you that you should have chased after him when he left the yacht,' Lauren sniped, staring over her sister's shoulder, unmoved by that shocking photo. It was obvious that her cynical expectations of her son-in-law had just been fully vindicated. 'Never let an angry man go if you want him back. Left to their own devices, they get up to all sorts of mischief!'