“Menus,” Megan interrupts us, and hands us both a laminated card. “I’ll be back to take your order in a minute.” She turns abruptly and heads for the bar.
I ignore her. “You were saying?”
Alessia watches Megan’s exit through suspicious eyes but says nothing about her. She continues, “It was my grandmother’s. She was Catholic. She used to pray in secret.” Alessia fondles her gold cross.
“So there’s no religion in your country?”
“There is now. Since we became a republic when the Communists fell, but in Albania we don’t make so much of it.”
“Oh, I thought religion was everything in the Balkans?”
“Not in Albania. We are a…what is the word? Secular state. Religion is very personal. You know, just between a person and their God. At home we are Catholics. Most people in my town are Muslim. But we do not give it much thought,” she responds with a quizzical look at me. “And you?”
“Me? Well, I suppose I’m Church of England. But I’m not religious at all.” Father Trewin’s words come back to me.
We lead by example, my son.
Bloody hell.
Maybe I should go to church tomorrow. Kit always
managed to go at least one or two Sundays a month when he was down here.
Me, not so much.
That’s another damn duty I have to fulfill.
“Are the English like you?” Alessia asks, pulling me back into the conversation.
“With regard to religion? Some are. Some aren’t. The UK is multicultural.”
“This I know.” She smiles. “When I traveled on the train in London, there were so many different languages spoken.”
“Do you like it? London?”
“It is noisy and crowded and very expensive. But it is exciting. I had never been to a big city before.”
“Not even Tirana?” Thanks to my expensive education, I know the capital of Albania.
“No. I have never traveled. I had never seen the sea until you brought me here.” Her glance out the window is wistful, but it gives me an opportunity to study her profile: long lashes, pert nose, pouting lips. I shift in my seat, my blood thickening.
Steady.
Megan appears with her pinched, angry face and scraped-back hair, and my problem subsides.
Boy, she is still bitter. It was one summer seven years ago. One fucking summer.
“Are you ready to order?” she asks, glaring at me. “Catch of the day is cod.” She makes it sound like an insult.
Alessia frowns and glances quickly at the menu.
“I’ll have the fish pie, please.” And, irritated, I cock my head, daring Megan to say anything.
“For me also,” says Alessia.
“Two fish pies. Any wine?”
“I’m fine with the beer. Alessia?”
Megan turns to the lovely Alessia Demachi. “For you?” she snaps.
“The beer is good for me, too.”
“Thank you, Megan,” I grunt in warning, and she shoots me a look.
She’ll probably spit in my food—or, worse, in Alessia’s.
“Shit,” I murmur under my breath as I watch her march back to the kitchen.
Alessia studies my reaction.
“That goes back several years,” I say, and tug at my sweater collar, embarrassed.
“What does?”
“Megan and I.”
“Oh,” Alessia says, her tone flat.
“She’s ancient history. Tell me about your family. Do you have any siblings?” I ask, desperately trying to move on.
“No,” she says abruptly, and it’s obvious she’s still considering Megan and me.
“Parents?”
“I have a mother and a father. Like all people.” She raises a beautiful, arched eyebrow.
Oh. The delectable Demachi has teeth.
“And what are they like?” I ask, stifling my amusement.
“My mother is…brave.” Her voice becomes soft and wistful.
“Brave?”
“Yes.” Her expression turns somber, and she glances out the window once more.
Okay. This subject is definitely off-limits.
“And your father?”
She shakes her head and shrugs. “He is an Albanian man.”
“And that means?”
“Well, my father is old-fashioned, and I do not…how do you say? We do not see eye for eye.” Her face falls a little, and her troubled expression tells me this, too, is off-limits.
“Eye to eye,” I correct her. “Tell me about Albania, then.”
Her face brightens. “What do you want to know?” She looks up at me through those long dark lashes, and my groin tightens again.
“Everything,” I whisper.