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his body stiffened. After catching breath, she straightened and took away her hand, his dark eyes studied hers and his expression softened. Caught in the moment, Dani smiled then the spell broke.
    â€˜We take a taxi.’ He stepped off the gutter and entered the mayhem. Lifting his hand, he whistled loudly and a black and yellow cab slammed on its brakes. This New York-style action stirred nostalgia within Dani, and homesickness for the city she’d adopted three years ago overwhelmed her. Carlos opened the door and she climbed in, settling on a cracked leather seat. A halo of cigarette smoke hung above them as Carlos slammed the door and barked an address at the driver, who sped off so fast she slid along the seat and crashed into her companion.
    â€˜Sorry,’ she mumbled, shuffling back to the far side of the car.
    Once again, Carlos looked everywhere but at her. Normally, she’d be annoyed at someone behaving like this but instead, she found his shifting demeanour intriguing. Life had taught her everyone has a story and their behaviour was a result of underlying events—past and present. Carlos didn’t appear to be naturally cantankerous and his current state may be a result of the dodgy leg from the motorbike accident. With the furore he was subjected to after the event, no wonder he was cranky.
    They wound through narrow streets and zipped between blocks of ramshackle houses into suburbs with natural arches of trees over wide streets and row upon row of ostentatious mansions decorated with elaborate stone carvings.
    In all the surprise and haste of this unplanned trip to the práctica , Dani had forgotten about being scared of running into her mother. Now fear crashed into her like a rogue wave. Thankfully, Dani’s chances of bumping into Iris were slim, as she’d recently escaped the tango world and become a recluse, rumoured to be living in a remote region of Argentina. If the story was true, and she hoped it was, then Dani would be fine.
    Carlos stared out the window, showing no sign of wanting to engage in conversation. Guilt pricked her conscience at the thought of having wangled her way into his sphere of trust by convincing him all she wanted was his help in writing the articles. Sure, she needed his assistance, but the hidden motive of surreptitiously gaining information on Iris made her uneasy. Especially since he’d already given her an extra chance after he’d caught her snooping. And even if she did explain her situation, she doubted Carlos—or anyone for that matter—could fully understand her overwhelming desire to learn about Iris but not want to see her. Dani was petrified that, should Iris discover her daughter was in Argentina, she would be coerced into playing happy families. That was the last thing she wanted. So whether she felt guilty or not, she had to keep this secret to herself and find a way to get the information she wanted without upsetting anyone. Good luck, McKenna .
    The taxi halted, they exited and stood on the footpath. Tango music and murmuring voices drifted through the open doors of El Gardenia and once again, the bandoneón had the same effect on her as fingernails down a blackboard. How could she cope being in a dance hall with bandoneóns whining for the next few hours? Carlos cocked his head in the direction of the doors and she tentatively climbed the marble staircase. Images of her mother’s slender figure draped in silk and sequins flashed before her. Dani had no idea how many pictures she’d collected over the years but all showed Iris’s long, dark hair framing a face that appeared younger than her real age. Along with the photos, she’d read hundreds of superficial articles about Iris, who was always referred to as La Gringa Magnifica , the Magnificent Foreigner. In Dani’s mind, though, she was still Iris Kennedy, the woman who forced a little girl to grow up faster than she should have.
    Dani reached