The Lost Recipe for Happiness Read Online Free Page B

Reassured, he pranced along, tail swinging, head upright and eagerly alert. Elena had found him in an alley when she first arrived in Vancouver, an abandoned puppy of five weeks, a fluffy ball of red fur. He loved snow—Aspen would be his idea of heaven.
    But—a binge-drinking chef who’d be pissed that Elena was taking his kitchen? That should be lots of fun. It was also cold in Aspen. How would all the arthritic points in her body react to that?
    “Get real, Elena,” she said aloud, fiercely enough that Alvin licked her hand. There were no real objections. The opportunity was heaven-sent.
    Well, except for Julian himself. Cloaked in that vampire stillness, so clean and tall and searingly intelligent. There was something real and solid about him, and yet—talk about trouble! A famous director with piles of money and a long stream of beautiful girlfriends and wives, who were a Who’s Who of one-bean-for-lunch actresses who kept the tabloids in business. But it was that flavor of sadness surrounding him that tempted her. He was hungry. Starving.
    Luckily, he was so rich and so accomplished and so out of her league they might as well have been different species. His appetites would run to an entirely different sort of flavor than a chef from New Mexico.
    When she finished the six-mile circle, Elena sat on a park bench in the sunshine, Alvin at her ankle lifting his nose to the air. A breeze rippled over his red-gold mane. She waited to see if her ghosts would have anything to say, but the air stayed still.
    From her pocket, she took her cell phone, checked the world clock function to make sure it wasn’t the middle of the night in London, and pressed 5 to autodial her friend Mia.
    “Hello, baby,” Mia answered in a voice as smooth and melodic as the Lady of the Lake. “I’m on my way to meet a juicy man. Can it wait?”
    “No.” Elena smiled, imagining Mia’s choppy black hair blowing around on a London wind. “You’re going to move to Aspen anyway, so forget about him.”
    “Aspen? Why am I moving there?”
    “Because I have been offered a position as executive chef in a new Julian Liswood restaurant and I will only take it if you agree to be my pastry chef.”
    “Oh, my God! Liswood the director?”
    “The same.”
    “This is fantastic.” She paused. “Oooh, the timing is horrible! I might have to think about this, though, you know? The man is really good. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about him.”
    Elena heard something in her friend’s voice. “Who is it? You haven’t mentioned anyone.”
    “I just didn’t think it was going to be anything. He’s…” She laughed breathlessly. “I’m still afraid to talk about it very much.”
    “Oh, but I need you, Mia. This is what we’ve been planning for a million years.”
    “Is Dmitri coming?”
    “No. He fired me this morning.” She sighed. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain it all in person.”
    “So the breakup is on?”
    “The breakup is finished, finally.”
    Mia took a breath. “Good. He was bad for you.”
    “Why didn’t you say that before?” Elena frowned. “Never mind. Not important today. Will you come?”
    A beat of hesitation. “I have to think, sweetness. I’ll call you in a week or so, okay? I really have to go now. Call you soon.”
    “Okay, I—”
    But there was the sound of a man’s laughter on the other end of the line and Mia was gone. Elena frowned and clapped the phone closed.
    When she hung up, she called Patrick, the third member of their team, but only got voice mail. “Hello, this is Patrick,” he said precisely, and she thought of his coxcomb of blond hair, his excruciatingly neat appearance. “Leave a message.”
    Elena smiled.
“Allo
! I have a wonderful opportunity for you,
h’ito.
Call me.”
             
    As a hired car transported Julian to the airport—he disliked navigating streets in unfamiliar cities—he drew the newspaper from his bag and unfolded it to show the article about