I pad across the living room in bare feet and a plush bathrobe that smells a little like Alexi, although I am trying to ignore that fact, with my hair wrapped up in a towel on top of my head. I am rosy from my hot soak for an hour and feel amazingly soft and refreshed, if not crazily sleepy. My brain on food as I head for the refrigerator to check out what he has in here, starving because the last meal I had today was the croissants from his henchman outside my door at first light.

Alexi tends to keep his apartments stocked with food when he is...