Early days of living in Bulgaria

At the end of June 2017, my boyfriend of 7 years and I moved to Bulgaria on what we envisaged as a fresh start and the beginning of our dream life together. The villa I had purchased was everything and more than I, and most people, would ever dream of owning. A luxury 6 bedroom Villa on 3 floors with no expense spared for fittings and furnishings. Set in its own grounds with its own pool, a fitness room, a luxury ensuite with a 2 man bath and double rain shower, even a marble staircase. It had so many unique features that  it certainly had the wow factor!  A house that would rival the home of any film star in the Hollywood hills. (Except on price of course!)

We felt truly blessed and life could not have been better!
We spent the days in the sun and getting aquainted with our new home and surrounding area as well as our  neighbours.
We saw more of Georgi who was always willing to help out with finding us local people for such things as having the internet connected, car repairs, the washing machine fixed and any other general info or advice we needed. Georgi at the time was working on a casual basis doing manual agricultural labour.
Back breaking work starting at 6am for which he was paid 20 -30 lev a day (9 -£13).  Low by our standards but the average wage for unskilled  work in Bulgaria.
We needed  to do a few minor DIY jobs and changes here and there to put our mark on the place so we hired Georgi. We paid him 50 lev a day (£22).
He was happy and earning twice as much and  we were happy to pay £22 a day and not have to do it ourselves!
On a few occasions over  the following weeks Valeri would briefly pop in to see Georgi. We would offer him a drink and make him feel welcome but he never stayed long and rarely spoke to me seeming a little uncomfortable around me. He spoke to Steven when he had something to say and seemed to find it easier to speak when I was not present. Steven and I would laugh about it, putting it down to nothing more than him being more relaxed with Steven and  not too sure what to make of a self confident woman who had made her own money and had bought a Villa that was far from reach for even the most successful men in Bulgaria. I was certainly very different to the Bulgarian stereotype of women.
Valeri looked troubled most of the time as if he was in emotional turmoil with a sad look in his eyes of someone who had been deeply hurt in the past.

However within a few months our internet was hacked and all our digital devices infiltrated.
(but I will cover the details of what happened  seperately later on).
The fear of not knowing who or why someone was hacking into our lives or whether we was in physical danger or would have our bank account emptied or our home fraudulently stolen from us caused us considerable stress and worry. Mainly because of not knowing what they wanted but aware that hackers hacked for some kind of gain. For 3 months it continued and nearly drove us both mad. To cut a long story short it brought to light the many infidelities on Steven's part and our relationship was thrown into turmoil.
Around this time Valeri started to visit more often. After months of practically saying nothing to me he started to talk to me....

• In fact he just turned up one night and come to my room for hours and talked about the laws of attraction and would not get the message that I wanted him to leave even when I pretended to fall asleep....