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All I knew was that she’d died because she tried to escape with me.

For the last twelve years, I’d told myself survival required patience.

Patience had kept me alive.

It had also kept me here.

Lachlan Byrnes might lie to me. I might lie to him. Neither changed the fact that my father wanted him alive, and powerful men outside these walls were searching for him.

For the first time since my mother’s death, the compound had been disrupted by something Father couldn’t control with a locked door.

I was going to use that disruption to help Lachlan escape.

I would find a way through the walls, the guards, and the drainage system beyond the lower grounds. And when his people came, I wouldn’t remain behind and wait for him to decide whether I was worth taking.

I was leaving with him.

Marta set the coffeepot down. “Would you like your books brought to the veranda this morning?”

“No. I thought I’d bake something for Father.”

Her brows rose. “Oh?”

“He hasn’t been home in more than a year.” I made myself smile. “I want to make his favorite pastel de tres leches for after dinner. He always liked it with coffee.”

Marta’s expression softened. “He’ll be pleased.”

That was the point.

“Would you bring my recipe basket to the kitchen? The brown one beside the bookcase. My cookbook, notes, and apron should already be inside.”

“Of course.”

By the time I reached the main kitchen, Marta had placed the basket on the long worktable.

The room had already filled with the normal morning rush. Pans clattered, water ran, and women moved between the pantry and the ovens while discussing lunch, dinner, and the unexpected number of men my father had brought home.

No one questioned my presence. I’d spent years baking because Father considered cookbooks, sugar, and flour appropriately harmless interests for a woman.

I tied on my apron and began the cake.

Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks in the mixer while I beat the yolks and sugar until they turned pale and thick. I measured the flour and baking powder as one of the cooks gathered the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and cream for the soak.

For a few minutes, I let them see the version of me they expected: the dutiful daughter making her father’s favorite dessert because she was happy he’d returned.

The performance turned my stomach, but it gave me access to everything Lachlan needed.

The kitchen door opened behind me, and conversation died.

Doña Teresa entered with her hands folded at her waist and her mouth already pinched in disapproval. She had governed my life since my mother’s death and treated every independent thought as evidence that Eliana had ruined me before she died.

Her gaze moved from the batter to my recipe basket.

“What is all this?”

“I’m making Father a tres leches cake.”

“Why?”