"Fine."
"Liar." Sophie leans forward, chin on her hand. "I saw you two at the market yesterday. The way you look at her is practically indecent."
"I do not—"
"Like she's the last croissant in the basket and you haven't eaten in days." Sophie grins. "It's very romantic, actually. Also very obvious."
I drop my head into my hands. "Is there anyone in this village who isn't watching us like we're entertainment?"
"Monsieur Lefèvre. But he's ninety-three and mostly blind." Sophie sips her coffee. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"
"Do about what?"
"About the fact that you're clearly in love with her and she's clearly in love with you and you're both dancing around it like idiots."
The word lands like a bomb.Love.I haven't let myself think it. Attraction, yes. Desire, absolutely. But love?
"It's been a month," I say weakly.
"So? My parents met at a bus stop and were engaged three weeks later. Forty years married." Sophie shrugs. "Time is irrelevant. Either you feel it or you don't."
I do feel it. That's the problem. I feel it every time she laughs, every time she frowns at a spreadsheet, every time she pads into the kitchen with her hair still messy from sleep.
I open my mouth to say exactly none of that—
—and behind me, the kitchen goes sideways.
A pan clatters. Someone swears in rapid Provençal. Through the door I can see Mathilde at the pass, silver bob wild, a fistful of tickets and the specific look of a chef whose sous has just abandoned her at the worst possible moment.
I'm on my feet before I've decided to be.
"Cat—" Sophie starts, laughing.
"Two minutes," I tell her, already reaching for the apron on the hook by the door.
The heat swallows me whole, and my hands justknow. I plate the salade niçoise waiting on the pass. I catch the duck before it turns. I call the next ticket before Mathilde can, and she throws me a look that's equal parts irritation and relief. For twenty minutes there's no Iris, no inheritance, no ninety-day clock ticking over my head. There's just the work, the rhythm of it, the way a kitchen makes sense when nothing else does.
Happy,I think, sliding the last plate up. That's the word. I feel happy.
The rush breaks.Mathilde pours two glasses of wine without asking and pushes one at me.
"I'm serious about the offer," she says. "Head chef. The kitchen's yours to do what you like with—I'm too old to fight the stove every night." She studies me over her glass. "You think like a Provençal but you cook like a Londoner. I want you permanently, Cat."
It's not the first time she's asked. And every time, I say I'll think about it—and mean it a little less.
"There are complications," I say.
"The American." It isn't a question.
"How does everyone—"
"It's a village, chérie. We have eyes. Also, Sophie is still at that table grinning at us like a fool." Mathilde nods toward thesquare, where they've already begun stringing lights between the plane trees. "Think about it. But give me an answer before the fête—three weeks. The whole village will be here, and I'd like to introduce my new chef."
Three weeks until the fête. Three weeks until the harvest, until whatever comes next.
I hang the apron back on its hook, and I don't miss the way it already feels like leaving something of mine behind.
That night,we sit on the terrace with a bottle of wine and watch the sunset paint the lavender fields in shades of gold and rose.
