The afternoon light has mellowed into gold by the time Henri returns from his truck with a crate of additional glassware.
The transformation of the tasting site sits between us like an offering neither of us expected me to make, and the suspicion in his weathered face has shifted into cautious curiosity that feels almost like progress.
"You work like someone who actually cares whether this place succeeds," Henri observes, setting the crate on a side table with more gentleness than his usual movements suggest. "Most seasonal staff count minutes until their shift ends."
"Details are the difference between mediocrity and excellence." I polish a glass that does not need polishing, keeping my hands busy so they cannot betray the nervous energy thrumming beneath my skin. "My grandmother taught me that obsessing over small things is the only path to achieving large ones."
Henri grunts, but the sound carries less hostility than I have come to expect from him.
He settles onto a wooden bench near the western windows, his joints creaking in harmony with the aged timber, and gestures for me to join him.
I hesitate, then lower myself onto the opposite end of the bench, maintaining careful distance while the golden light spills across the stone floor between us.
"Bastien found me sleeping in the vineyard thirty years ago," Henri says, and the confession emerges without preamble. "I was seventeen, drunk on cheap wine I had stolen from a neighboring estate, running from a father who made it clear I was nothing but a disappointment taking up space in his house."
The raw honesty catches me off guard, and I find myself leaning closer despite my better judgment.
"What happened?" I ask, genuinely curious about this man who has watched me with suspicion since the moment I arrived.
"Bastien could have dragged me back to my father's door." Henri's voice softens with memory, and the hard lines of his face ease into something approaching tenderness. "Instead, he brought me inside, fed me breakfast, and asked what I knew about growing grapes. When I admitted I knew nothing, he said that was the perfect place to start."
"He gave you a home."
"He gave me a purpose." Henri turns to look at me directly, and the intensity in his gaze makes my breath catch. "This family saved my life when no one else would have bothered to notice I was drowning. Bastien treated me like a son."
The parallel to my own situation lands painfully. I also arrived at this estate desperate and running, and the Côtés took me in without demanding explanations I was not ready to give.
The guilt coils tighter in my chest, constricting my lungs until breathing requires conscious effort.
"I understand that kind of debt," I say carefully, the words scraping past the tightness in my throat. "The kind that cannot be repaid with money or labor—only with loyalty."
Henri studies me for a long moment, and the suspicion in his expression gives way to something that looks almost like recognition.
"Perhaps you do understand," he admits. "Perhaps that grandmother of yours taught you more than wine techniques."
The conversation flows easier after that, meandering through harvest seasons Henri has witnessed and the way the estate has evolved over three decades of careful stewardship.
He speaks of Bastien's wife and the grief that nearly broke the old man before he found reasons to keep living in his vines and his grandson and the land that demanded his attention regardless of personal tragedy.
I listen with genuine interest, letting the afternoon warmth and the intimacy of shared stories lull me into a comfort I have not felt since childhood summers.
"The buyers coming Thursday will expect traditional pairings," Henri says, steering the conversation back toward practical matters. "Regional cheeses, local charcuterie, the standards that every estate in Provence trots out for visiting merchants."
"Traditional pairings are safe, but safety does not create memorable experiences." I lean forward, warming to a subject I know too well. "The secret is understanding that terroir tells its own story through the glass—you cannot separate the wine from the land that created it, and the food you pair should echo that connection."
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, flowing from a place so familiar I do not realize the danger until I see Henri's face.
All the color drains from his weathered cheeks.
His body goes rigid, every muscle locking into stillness that feels more threatening than movement.
"What did you just say?" His voice emerges quiet and controlled, but underneath I hear the tremor of recognition that makes my stomach plummet through the stone floor.
I said those exact words two years ago.
Standing in this very building, wearing a blonde wig and blue contacts, I spoke that phrase to Bastien Côté while pretending to be a journalist who wanted to tell his story.
And Henri was there.
"It is just what my grandmother used to share with me," I manage, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears, and I watch the denial fail to land as Henri's expression hardens into granite.
"The journalist," he says, and each syllable drops like a stone into still water, sending ripples of dread through my entire body. "It was you."
My mouth opens, but no sound emerges because there is nothing I can say that will undo what I have done.
"I trusted you." Henri's voice shakes with betrayal that cuts deep. "Against every instinct I possess, I trusted you because you seemed to genuinely care about helping this family. And you are the one who nearly killed us."
"Henri, please, let me explain what happened—" I reach for his arm, desperate to make him understand that the woman who wore that disguise is not the woman standing before him now.
He shakes me off.
"I am telling Estienne immediately. He deserves to know what kind of snake he has been sheltering in his home."
The threat sends panic flooding through every nerve I possess because if Estienne learns the truth from Henri's mouth instead of mine, I will lose any chance to explain.
I grab his wrist before he can move toward the door, my fingers wrapping around the weathered skin with desperation that makes my grip too tight.
"Please. Please do not do this. Just give me a chance to—"
The door opens.
Estienne stands in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the late afternoon light, his expression utterly unreadable as his gaze moves from Henri's rigid posture to my white-knuckled grip on the foreman's wrist.
"Give you a chance to what?" he asks.
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