toward the door. “Showtime, sweetheart.”
Elena felt faintly sick, looking from one to the other. A whirl of images tumbled through her mind, Dmitri and culinary school, the first day in Paris and how intimidated she’d been. There was Maria and Marie and Mia, her knives, and the years and years of nights in kitchens, calling out, learning, plating and creating and working. Always working so hard. She thought of Julian sitting out there, believing in her. She took off her apron, smoothed her smock. “How do I look?”
Ivan brushed back a lock of her hair.
Patrick said, “Lipstick.”
Elena couldn’t remember where her purse was. Patrick spied it, rushed over and grabbed it. She pulled out the lipstick and applied the translucent berry color carefully, using the end of the tube as a tiny mirror. Blotting her lips together, she looked from one to the other. “Better?”
Ivan dropped heavy lids. “Succulent,” he pronounced, licking his own lips.
“Go, ma chérie,” Patrick said. “Remember, you are a queen. This is your first audience.”
She took a breath and headed into the great room, a tumble of images rushing through her mind—hot chocolate at Angelina’s; the late, hard nights in Santa Fe trying to prove she wasn’t some gangland girl from Espanola, but genuinely about something; the heady rush of seeing the skyline of New York City through the windows of an airplane the first time, a thousand images of plates she’d created, menus she’d helped write, all leading—
Right here. Right now.
“Hello, everyone,” she said, tangling her fingers together behind her back. She felt small and bosomy in the high-ceilinged room, a robin amidst the pink and leggy pelicans. “My name is Elena Alvarez, and I am the executive chef of the Orange Bear, which is the brilliant Julian Liswood’s latest restaurant innovation—” She gestured toward Julian, at the head of the table.
He smiled in that distant, Mount Olympus way. The diners lifted their glasses toward him. He raised a wine globe.
In that gesture, in the inclination of his head, she realized he was a million miles out of her league. It made the whole thing a lot easier, somehow. Of course she had a crush on the emperor—who wouldn’t? The only foolishness would be in expecting anything to come of it.
She rocked forward on her toes, smiling. “We hope you’ll all make the Orange Bear a new favorite when you visit Aspen, and to that end, we’ve prepared a tasting menu for you. Patrick and Ivan will begin serving momentarily, and you have a menu beside your plate. If you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to address them after dinner. In the meantime, please enjoy.”
Giving a short bow, she left them, her heart pounding. Her cheeks were burning hot as she returned to the kitchen. “Okay, get going,” she barked.
Patrick patted her shoulder. “You were great, Elena.”
“You were,” Ivan agreed, picking up a tray full of exquisitely beautiful plates of tamales, the green, blue, and red husks split open to display the tender masa within. “They all wanted you, sweetheart. Even me.”
“Go,” she said, shaking her head. “Serve.”
They got the tamales out and Elena watched through the door, listening as Ivan charmed them in his bear’s voice, and Patrick poured a full-bodied Spanish red into glasses as thin as jellyfish.
Beautiful, she thought, smiling in satisfaction. Spanish guitar tumbled softly from the speakers. Candlelight shone over the hammered tin and with more fierceness over silver cutlery. The pink and orange gave a sense of warmth to the cold autumn night, and the little candy skeletons proved irresistible to the diners, who were arranged like flowers themselves around the long, heavy table. The scent of the food rose, spicy and welcoming, and with great satisfaction, she watched as face after face transformed at the first bite of Ivan’s exquisite duck and elk tamales, the surprise and delight of expecting one thing and getting something so much better.
The girl, Katya, stood beside Elena, looking at the diners. “Look at their faces,” she said quietly. “They love this food.”
Elena flashed her a grin. “Yes, they do.” Katya had been very good tonight, showing a rare intuitive gift for knowing what needed to be done, facilitating the work of the others. “Do you work for someone in town here?”
“My mom does housecleaning,” she said. “Sometimes I help at parties.”
“You like it?”
“Not really the serving.” She rubbed her skinny arms. “I’d like to learn to cook. Like you. That would be really cool. But my mom says it’s