Christmas in Paris

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drink.”
    â€œYou paid for lunch at Fouquet’s, we’re even.” He walked to the Regency desk. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m working on a new sketch.”
    â€œThen why are the papers crumpled in the garbage?” she asked.
    â€œI keep wanting to draw Gus doing something drastic,” Alec sighed. “My readers don’t mind if he slays dragons because they’re not real. But this morning I almost drew Gus chopping off someone’s head with a guillotine.”
    â€œYou said you were getting over Celine.” Isabel tried not to laugh. “You don’t want to be with someone who isn’t in love with you.”
    â€œIt’s a bit complicated.” Alec ate a bite of croissant. “This is delicious. I almost forgot there’s nothing better than Parisian pastries.”
    â€œAnd there’s nowhere better than Paris.” Isabel’s eyes sparkled. “I slept wonderfully, and I woke up with an idea.”
    â€œI hope it doesn’t involve tossing your shoe off the balcony or stepping in front of a taxi.”
    â€œDo you ever wake up and realize you figured out something in your sleep?” she continued. “The end of the novel you’re reading, or a calculus problem you couldn’t solve.”
    â€œI stopped doing math in sixth form,” Alec said. “That’s why they invented calculators and iPhones.”
    â€œI’ve always been able to do it. I’d go to sleep figuring out an equation and in the morning it would be worked out in my head,” Isabel said.
    â€œYou should set up a booth in the Christmas market,” Alec murmured. “You could charge ten euros to decipher people’s dreams.”
    â€œLast night I went to sleep worrying about the fortune-teller’s prediction.” Isabel perched on a velvet love seat. “I can’t spend my life walking around ladders or looking up to see if something is falling from the sky.”
    â€œI’m sure you’re perfectly safe.” Alec grinned. “She said you’d narrowly miss being killed and you were. She didn’t say anything about a repeat performance.”
    â€œThat’s the thing.” Isabel jumped up. “She was right about the glass bracelet and about almost being run over; she was probably right about the other thing.”
    â€œWhat other thing?” Alec felt suddenly nervous, as if there was a spider creeping up his leg.
    â€œShe said I’m going to fall in love with and marry a French aristocrat,” Isabel exclaimed. “That’s why I came to Paris, to fall in love! Now all I have to do is find a French aristocrat and everything will be perfect.”
    â€œThat’s the craziest thing I ever heard.” He whistled. “Maybe you bumped your head when you hit the pavement. You should go back to bed with a hot compress and a bowl of chicken soup.”
    â€œDon’t you see? I study the markets in Asia and Europe and then decide where my clients should put their money,” Isabel continued. “JPMorgan Chase pays me a large salary to predict the future.”
    â€œBy using graphs and algorithms, not by getting your palm read by a gypsy.”
    â€œEver since I was a girl, I dreamed of a husband and children.” She fiddled with a cushion. “I adore my career, but I don’t want to wake up when I’m forty with a penthouse apartment and an empty guest room. But I’ve had the worst luck with men; I can’t seem to get it right. Maybe it’s time to listen to someone else.”
    â€œNot to a woman wearing red slippers and a multicolored scarf,” Alec spluttered.
    â€œWhy not? She was right about me receiving a gift and almost being killed. The chances are she is right about me falling in love with a French aristocrat.”
    â€œThat sounds like it makes sense, but it doesn’t.” Alec rubbed his forehead. “Love is random, you

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