"I do." The words come out before I can stop them. "I know this place. I know how it works. I can—" I stop, not sure what I'm offering or why.
"You can what?"
"I can teach you. If you want. The lavender, the distillery, how things run here." I pull into the drive and stop the car, turning to face her for the first time since we left Duval's office. "Look, I know this isn't what either of us wanted. But we're stuck here for three months whether we like it or not. We might as well make it work."
Iris studies me for a long moment. Her eyes are brown, I notice—a warm brown, at odds with the cool precision of everything else about her. There's something there, behind the control, that almost looks like fear.
"Why are you being nice to me?" she asks finally. "I show up out of nowhere, claim half your inheritance—"
"It's not my inheritance. It's our inheritance." The word tastes strange in my mouth, but it's true. "Grand-mère wanted us both here. She left us both this place. Whatever else is going on, that's what she wanted."
Iris looks down at the envelope in her lap. Her fingers trace the edge, not quite opening it.
"I don't know if I can do this," she says quietly. "What if I'm not... what if I don't fit here?"
The softness in her voice catches me off guard. For a moment, she doesn't look like a corporate exec or a controlled perfectionist or any of the things I've been telling myself about her since she arrived. She just looks tired. And scared. And completely out of her depth.
"We'll figure it out," I say. "Together. That's what Grand-mère wanted, isn't it? For us to figure it out together."
Iris meets my eyes. Something passes between us—not warmth, exactly, but something closer to a truce.
"Ninety days," she says.
"Ninety days."
"I'm going to need better shoes."
This time, I actually do laugh. "Yeah, probably. Those heels won't survive a day."
She looks down at her impractical, beautiful shoes, and for just a second, I see the ghost of a smile cross her face.
"I'll add it to the list," she says.
We get out of the car and walk toward the farmhouse—together, for the first time—and I try not to think about the envelope in my pocket or the words I haven't read yet. I try not to think about what truths Grand-mère wanted us to discover, or why it had to be this way, or what happens at the end of ninety days.
Three months. I have to survive three months with her.
5
IRIS
I've been awake since five.
Jet lag, I tell myself. Just jet lag. Not the fact that I'm sleeping in a stranger's house—a dead stranger's house—in a country I've never visited, with a woman I don't know in the room next door. Not the fact that my entire life has been upended in the space of a week and I have no spreadsheet for how to handle it.
The rooster starts up right on schedule, and I give up on sleep entirely.
Running has been my salvation since high school—the rhythm, the predictability, the way my body takes over and my brain finally, mercifully, shuts up. I pull on leggings and a sports bra and slip down the hall as quietly as I can, hoping to be out of the house before Cat wakes up.
No such luck.
She's in the kitchen again—of course she is—wearing an oversized t-shirt that might be a nightgown and holding a cup of tea. Her hair is loose, auburn curls tumbling over her shoulders,and she looks soft in a way that makes something uncomfortable twist in my stomach.
"Early riser?" she asks, her voice still rough with sleep.
"Runner. I'm going to explore the roads."
"Watch out for a goat."
