drink.â âYou paid for lunch at Fouquetâs, weâre even.â He walked to the Regency desk. âIf youâll excuse me, Iâm working on a new sketch.â âThen why are the papers crumpled in the garbage?â she asked. âI keep wanting to draw Gus doing something drastic,â Alec sighed. âMy readers donât mind if he slays dragons because theyâre not real. But this morning I almost drew Gus chopping off someoneâs head with a guillotine.â âYou said you were getting over Celine.â Isabel tried not to laugh. âYou donât want to be with someone who isnât in love with you.â âItâs a bit complicated.â Alec ate a bite of croissant. âThis is delicious. I almost forgot thereâs nothing better than Parisian pastries.â âAnd thereâs nowhere better than Paris.â Isabelâs eyes sparkled. âI slept wonderfully, and I woke up with an idea.â âI hope it doesnât involve tossing your shoe off the balcony or stepping in front of a taxi.â âDo you ever wake up and realize you figured out something in your sleep?â she continued. âThe end of the novel youâre reading, or a calculus problem you couldnât solve.â âI stopped doing math in sixth form,â Alec said. âThatâs why they invented calculators and iPhones.â âIâve always been able to do it. Iâd go to sleep figuring out an equation and in the morning it would be worked out in my head,â Isabel said. âYou should set up a booth in the Christmas market,â Alec murmured. âYou could charge ten euros to decipher peopleâs dreams.â âLast night I went to sleep worrying about the fortune-tellerâs prediction.â Isabel perched on a velvet love seat. âI canât spend my life walking around ladders or looking up to see if something is falling from the sky.â âIâm sure youâre perfectly safe.â Alec grinned. âShe said youâd narrowly miss being killed and you were. She didnât say anything about a repeat performance.â âThatâs the thing.â Isabel jumped up. âShe was right about the glass bracelet and about almost being run over; she was probably right about the other thing.â âWhat other thing?â Alec felt suddenly nervous, as if there was a spider creeping up his leg. âShe said Iâm going to fall in love with and marry a French aristocrat,â Isabel exclaimed. âThatâs 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 âThatâs the craziest thing I ever heard.â He whistled. âMaybe 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 âDonât you see? I study the markets in Asia and Europe and then decide where my clients should put their money,â Isabel continued. âJPMorgan Chase pays me a large salary to predict the future.â âBy using graphs and algorithms, not by getting your palm read by a gypsy.â âEver since I was a girl, I dreamed of a husband and children.â She fiddled with a cushion. âI adore my career, but I donât want to wake up when Iâm forty with a penthouse apartment and an empty guest room. But Iâve had the worst luck with men; I canât seem to get it right. Maybe itâs time to listen to someone else.â âNot to a woman wearing red slippers and a multicolored scarf,â Alec spluttered. âWhy 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 âThat sounds like it makes sense, but it doesnât.â Alec rubbed his forehead. âLove is random, you