The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,73

the second time had Ricki not been pregnant with Portia. Julian wanted full paternal rights, and he married Ricki to make sure that happened.

His second wife had been a starlet who dazzled him on the set of his first slasher picture, a beautiful girl who’d gone on to major stardom in television. The divorce had been splashed all over the tabloids, nasty and acrimonious, and in the end, even though she had been the one to leave the marriage, Julian had been forced to pay her a huge settlement, which, it turned out, she didn’t even need.

Water under the bridge. He’d been on his own for a while, then he made another movie with Ricki, who was as beautiful as ever. They were older, wiser, thought they might be able to make a go of it. This time, they dated for a year, and Ricki—who was charming and sparkling and devoted when things went her way—had grown up. She got pregnant, they got married, it fell apart in eighteen months.

But for Portia’s sake, they were adults. And in that sense, Julian thought they’d done a good job. They both put Portia first, and as a result, the girl had much better grounding than a lot of Hollywood kids; hell, a lot of American kids, period.

His fourth wife—well, they’d meant well, but it was a bad match.

Better to have a maid service and hire help to cook.

So why was he even bothering to worry about what Elena would think when she found out about the movie? It wasn’t like either one of them had any faith in the idea of soul mates. It was ridiculous that he was even worried about it—he had kissed her exactly once.

How scary was it that when he thought of a wife, he thought of a woman he’d only known a few months? Had he learned nothing?

Maybe not. But maybe he had. He couldn’t help feeling like there was something special here. Something real. Something that shifted the electrons in his body when she was around. She made him feel grounded and quiet and—happy.

With a scowl, he put his hands on his hips. He should tell her about the screenplay. Come clean before she found out some other way.

Tell her, man.

That night—Halloween night—was the tasting party with Julian’s cronies. At Julian’s house. Elena, Patrick, and Ivan had hammered out a menu and a plan, and at 1 p.m., they headed over to set things up.

Ivan whistled as they stepped out of the van. “Must be nice.”

Patrick gave the house a glance and dismissed it. “We’d better hurry.”

Ivan gave Elena a shake of the head, cocking his thumb toward Patrick. “Do you believe this guy?” He took a large pan of tamales out of the van. “Oh, I get it. You’re a prince yourself. Not like us working-class stiffs.”

The back of Patrick’s neck was red. “Leave him alone,” Elena said, carrying a load of linens brought from the restaurant.

“He knows I’m just giving him a hard time.” Ivan leaned over and made a kissing noise near Patrick’s neck, almost touching his cheek. “Don’t you, Prince Patrick?”

Stiffly, Patrick held the door, his mouth pursed. “It may have escaped your notice that this is your employer’s home, Ivan. Perhaps you should pay attention to your job.”

Ivan chuckled as he entered the house, the sound as dark as cinnamon. Winking at one of the women hired to help set up and serve, he said, “He’s hot for me.”

The woman, really not much more than a girl, softened visibly at the sight of the dandy Patrick, hair exquisitely clipped and frozen in a messy style that perfectly offset his fresh-scrubbed face. “Right down the hall,” she said, pointing. Julian was not on hand to greet them. Elena heard the sound of vacuuming upstairs.

Once they carried everything inside, she organized the tasks they had yet to do. Ivan took on the last of the cooking while she and Patrick set up the service and the tables. Patrick filled glass bowls with clear marbles dotted with just a few bright ones—turquoise, rose, lime—and put a brightly colored betta fish in each one. At intervals along the table were an eclectic collection of other containers—hammered tin and Oaxaca pottery and wooden vases, each one filled with marigolds and small pink carnations. More marigold heads were scattered loosely the length of the table, along with pink and white and yellow candy skulls. The candleholders were heavy colonial Spanish, each holding a white candle ready to