"It's not simple. It's just... necessary." I lift her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "We've survived worse than Jean-Pierre Beaumont. He doesn't even cook."
Iris is quiet for a moment. Then she leans forward and kisses me—not the desperate kiss from last night, but something softer. A promise.
"Okay," she says against my lips. "We fight this together."
I believe her.
For the first time since that knock on the door, I let myself believe that we're going to be okay.
The rest of the day is phone calls. Duval, reassuring but serious—the claim is weak, not nonexistent, and we need a properdefense. The lawyer he recommends, who agrees to file a response within the week. Monique, who tells us Jean-Pierre can go to hell and the whole village will swear to it under oath.
By evening, we're exhausted.
We collapse on the terrace with wine and leftover cheese, too tired to cook, too wound up to sleep. The sun is setting over the lavender, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, and I try to hold onto the beauty of it—to remember that this place is worth fighting for.
"I'm sorry," Iris says suddenly.
"For what?"
"For bringing drama. Everywhere I go, there's drama." She laughs, but it's not really a laugh. "My mother, my family baggage, and now this—"
"Hey." I set down my wine and turn to face her. "You didn't bring Jean-Pierre. He's been circling this property for years, waiting for his chance. This would have happened whether you were here or not."
"But if I wasn't here, you could just—"
"I couldn't just anything." I cup her face in my hands, making her look at me. "I don't want to do this without you. Any of it. Not the fighting, not the paperwork, not the living here. You're not drama, Iris. You're—" I search for the word. "You're home."
Her eyes fill with tears. "Cat—"
"I know it's fast. I know we just started—whatever this is. But I already know. I already know that I don't want to do any of this without you."
She kisses me. It's salty with tears and fierce with something I don't have a name for, and when she pulls back, she's smiling through the tears.
"I'm not going anywhere," she says. "I'm here. With you. Fighting Jean-Pierre and figuring out lavender and burning eggs every time I try to cook them."
"You'll get better at the eggs."
"I really won't. But that's okay. That's what I have you for."
We sit there as the sun finishes setting, tangled together on the old wicker loveseat, and I feel something settle in my chest. Peace, maybe. Or certainty.
Whatever comes next, we face it together.
19
IRIS
By day three of building our case, my eyes are burning, my back aches from hunching over the kitchen table, and I'm fairly certain I've developed a permanent furrow between my eyebrows.
Cat looks just as exhausted. She's been handling the property-related documents—proof of Marguerite's sound mind in the form of business decisions, contracts, correspondence—while I've been cataloguing the personal evidence. Photographs. The box from the barn. A paper trail left by a woman who was anything but confused.
A woman who loved fiercely, planned carefully, and knew exactly what she was doing when she left this place to us.
The fight arrives on day two, somewhere between the property deeds and the witness list.
"We should bring in a second firm," I say. "There's a practice in Paris that specialises in contested estates. I made some calls this morning."
Cat's pen stops. "You made some calls."
