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Tarek smiled. ‘I think perhaps it is a best-kept secret among a certain generation.’ He nodded toward the other diners.
Freya noticed they were mostly retirement age. She returned his smiled. ‘I see what you mean. How did you find this place?’
‘I was just walking around at the weekend, and I thought I’d pop in and see this church. Like you, I didn’t take much notice of the sign, so imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a café.’ Tarek set a plate of lasagne down in front of her, along with some cutlery. ‘I’ll just return the tray.’
She turned in her seat and watched him walk down the staircase and leave the tray by a counter with cutlery and sauces. When he took a seat opposite her, he said, ‘Do you like it? Was it a nice surprise?’
‘Oh, yes. I like it very much.’ Freya tried the lasagne. ‘This is amazing.’
‘I know.’
She looked at him curiously.
‘What?’
‘I think you’ve been in here a lot.’
He nodded. ‘It beats the university food in the halls.’
‘Oh, yes – I forgot that’s where you were.’
‘Yes. I haven’t lived in halls of residence since, well, since I was a student in Alexandria.’
Freya smiled. She loved to hear stories of Tarek’s life in Egypt. Inevitably, the conversation led back to Alexandria. This time, though, he got on to the subject of his accommodation in Cambridge.
‘I’m in halls in Christ College.It’s okay, I guess. Not what I would have chosen, though.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d have given you accommodation at a college.’ She’d expected he’d have to rent somewhere privately.
‘It wasn’t my choice. It was my father’s because this is the college he came to years ago, before I was born, when he taught here for a while.’
‘Your father was here in Cambridge?’
‘No – heishere.’
‘You mean – your father came too?’ Freya looked at him wide-eyed. It was little wonder that the college accommodated them. Tarek’s father was a world-renowned professor of archaeology at Alexandria University and an eminent Egyptologist. He had been involved in many archaeological digs in and around the Nile and had written many books and articles in his field.Any a student of archaeology and antiquities would have loved to meet him. That was one of the reasons she had wanted the secondment to Alexandria. Of course, she could go there on holiday, but that wouldn’t come with a behind the scenes look at the archaeology department at the university or the famous library. And she wasn’t about to go there on holiday – not with her partner. Theo had made his views clear; he wasn’t interested in that sort of thing.
Freya sighed as she put her knife and fork down on her empty plate. How was it that she ended up with a guy who had absolutely no interested in Ancient Egypt? So many people found the pyramids and Giza and The Valley of the Kings fascinating. But not Theo.
Staring at Tarek, she was still taken aback that his father was there in England. ‘You are joking – right?’
‘Nope. No joke.’
Freya guessed that was why he hadn’t appeared happy to be there in England when she’d first met him.
‘At first I wasn’t happy that he’d insisted I come.’
‘And now?’
Tarek eyed her thoughtfully. ‘I think you know the answer to that question.’
Freya could feel those butterflies in her tummy again as she there under his gaze.
‘So, that’s the reason we’re staying at that college. It’s his old stomping ground—’ He paused, catching Freya grinning. ‘What is it?’
‘Stomping ground – you sound so …’
‘English?’
