“I know,” Ainsley said contritely. “You can’t find a record of her. But her grandmother, Nataskia, and I only had a brief fling; Evette was the result. Nataskia didn’t want Evette involved with Connexion, or the rest of the family. I couldn’t blame her for that—fuck knows we’re not exactly a convention of saints and introverts—so I respected her wishes. There was a discreet trust fund set up, which was increased when Gwendoline came along. The three of them have lived outside of media attention and corporate politics and done well for themselves. I kept minimal contact, which hurt, but I sucked it up, and everyone was happy ever after.”

“I see,” Yuri said diplomatically. “So what’s happened?”

“Horatio Seymore,” Gwendoline said, tears welling up.

“Who is he?”

“My boyfriend. He’s vanished.” It was a classic summer romance, she explained. Her first true love. She’d just started an internship with a London finance software firm—obtained entirely on her own merit, Ainsley chipped in proudly. Horatio was a waiter in one of the HazBeanz franchises in the City, frequented by her office. He was nineteen, and Bristol University had offered him a place studying social sciences, which was why he was signed up as a trainee barista for the summer, to earn some money toward the fees. He wanted a career working with underprivileged children in the ribbon towns, helping them get their lives in order.

Yuri did his best not to groan and roll his eyes. Classic wasn’t the word, he thought; it was Lady Chatterley rewritten for the twenty-second century. She was comfortably off, leading a sheltered socialite life amid her own class, while he was poor and modest, dedicating his life to a worthy cause. The attraction was enacted at an atomic level. When Gwendoline’s altme sent Boris a file loaded with images, Yuri found it hard to decide which of the two kids was the prettiest. Even given the summer’s anomalous heat, there were an excessive number of pictures of Horatio with his shirt off—playing football with pals, at the beach, lazing in the park. As well as being adorably noble, given the whole social worker gig, he was quite a sports hunk, with Caribbean heritage giving his nicely muscled body a dark-honey sheen and dusting his brown eyes with a vivacious sparkle. His heavily curled hair was long and unkempt, adding to his desirability.