Second Chance in Barcelona

by Fiona McArthur

  In support, Cleo’s hands cupped the mother’s hands as she broke the surface with her new daughter to rest her tiny, blue-tinged face between Sofia’s breasts. Cleo wiped the baby’s eyes, nose and mouth with a soft sponge and she breathed. No cry. But blinkingly awake.

  Sofia’s brimming eyes met Cleo’s and Cleo nodded. ‘Congratulations. She’s beautiful. You’re amazing.’

  Such incredulous wonder on the mother’s face. ‘She’s here. I did it. Thank you.’

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thursday

  DR FELIPE ANTONIO ALCALA GONZALES, had landed in Sydney on Tuesday on his private aircraft and he’d been busy since then.

  Tonight he met with Diego, another distant cousin who lived in Australia. They were heading to Diego’s bar to discuss finding his cousin, Sofia, who had slipped out of sight. ‘Felipe. How goes your grandmother?’

  ‘Not well. But she is fighting her illness until I return Sofia to Spain.’ Doña Luisa, the woman who had raised him when his mother had died many years ago, had asked him to retrieve his cousin, and he would do what she wished. She should not have had to ask. He would do anything for the woman who’d shown him the love he’d never received from his late father.

  They’d all thought his cousin Sofia Gonzales was at university in Sydney, but instead she’d become quietly entangled with an Australian conman and was heavily pregnant by him. Diego had been watching him this last week at Felipe’s request.

  ‘Thank you, Diego. Your help has been invaluable. Though we still need to see her home to Spain before the baby is born if possible.’

  ‘Sí.’ Diego clenched his hand into a fist. ‘And I would have liked to have thrashed the scoundrel, with his mistress watching, for their insults to Sofia. She is only nineteen!’

  Felipe’s eyes flared. ‘As would I. But now their plans for her inheritance have been blocked by the family’s bankers. They will get no more of her money.’

  ‘Sofia is blaming you for running him off.’

  Felipe nodded. ‘Of course. She is young. Thought herself in love and she didn’t believe the charges against the man.’ And Felipe had used his own money to buy the conman off.

  He understood Sofia’s anger with him but the avarice he’d seen in the conman’s eyes had quickly banished any reluctance to upset his cousin.

  Sofia and her baby would be safer in Spain where his grandmother—for as long as she could—and he could watch over them. In time hopefully a suitable Catalan husband could be found for Sofia, if she was agreeable.

  It should never have reached the stage that such a leech could attach himself to his family and enthral his cousin.

  He must take some of the blame for that happening, but in his defence the last year had been absolutely crazy.

  His work as medical director and oncology consultant at his hospice had been all-consuming. His father’s death had left him in charge of the family. Except he had failed with Sofia.

  His grandmother’s terminal illness had taken most of his free thoughts. That and the sudden decline of his best friend’s health, too.

  Sofia had been pushed aside.

  Now his cousin had gone into hiding, but he knew she deserved a moment to catch her breath after the betrayal of the man she loved. He would find her and bring her home before Monday.

  But the delay was driving him insane when his grandmother was fading in health back in Spain.

  * * *

  On Saturday Felipe strode into the Villa Rosa flamenco club in Sydney. The one you went to for the best of Spanish dancers. The one that sold the best of Catalonian wine. The one run by Diego.

  Today he had tracked down and seen Sofia and her newborn baby.

  Yet, when he had finally talked to his cousin, they had achieved nothing productive.

  Sofia utterly refused to accompany him in his aircraft and leave Australia. Impasse. She did not believe that their grandmother was dying or that he’d promised his grandmother to bring her home.

  He could give her two more nights before he had to leave for Spain. He felt as if he would explode, having been given the disquieting news that in his absence his grandmother had become more unwell, her heart failing quickly, and he needed to return.

  Damn the complications created in Australia when he wanted to be in Spain and by his little grandmother’s side.

  Just walking into Diego’s club, though, seeing the familiar trappings, hearing the familiar music and smelling the scent of fruit-filled sangria, calmed a little of his agitation.

  Monday. They would leave on Monday. He had to convince Sofia that there was little time left for their grandmother.

  His eyes watched the male dancer finish the eight o’clock show and Felipe admitted the man was good. Even envied him the freedom to express himself in that manner.

  Felipe could dance. Frowned on by his autocratic father, it was one thing his grandmother had been firm about when his father had scorned the idea.

  Even now, at thirty-six, he could remember her whispering to him not to hold his emotions inside like his father did. ‘I see you when you dance. Flamenco for you offers the release of your emotions,’ she’d said.

  Since then he’d incorporated many dance moves into his daily private workout routine and it soothed him. His grandmother had been amused.

  Diego approached and held out his hand. ‘Don Felipe.’

  Felipe’s anger softened momentarily at his cousin’s mock deference. They had grown up together, though their lives had diverged many years ago when Diego had moved to Australia.

  Diego’s face saddened. ‘Doña Luisa is failing, cousin?’

  Felipe didn’t want to talk about how much he wanted to be at home right now, but Diego knew. Had understood from the moment he’d arrived here from Spain. Instead, Felipe nodded at the Spaniard departing from the stage. ‘I could stamp more than he if I let all my anger out.’

  ‘Then why not do it?’ Diego’s voice was low. ‘Marcos will step aside and go home early in a heartbeat to his wife. It would be good for you.’ He shrugged. ‘And I love to watch your passion.’ A brief gesture with his hand. ‘I could easily arrange for your flamenco during the last session of the evening. Perhaps enjoy the company of a beautiful woman tonight, flirt, and forget your troubles and responsibilities. I would like to see you smile before you leave.’

  He didn’t need the complication of a woman tonight, but to dance? Felipe’s first thought of performing in the club—ridiculous. His second—he wished he could. His third—to hell with proper behaviour for his status. He’d do it. To step away from his grief, release his anger and try to go home whole on Monday.

  Nobody knew him here. Perhaps his grandmother would smile when he told her.

  ‘Do you have boots?’

  * * *

  At 10:00 p.m., when the time arrived for his performance, he slipped into the bar and surveyed the audience, but his gaze caught on the woman in the blue scarf and lingered. His cousin’s words came back to him.

  ‘Enjoy the company of a beautiful woman tonight and forget your troubles and responsibilities.’

  She was tall and auburn-haired, with an aura of serenity that soothed his own jangling emotions, and he felt the pull of something quiet and real. Odd ramifications of her presence echoed all the way down to his waiting, angry, black-booted feet.

  As he watched her, an inexplicable tendril of calm and peace entered his soul and rested there. Later, if she was still there, perhaps he would talk to her...

  CHAPTER TWO

  CLEO SAVOURED THE odd feeling of exhilaration in her chest and the room’s aroma of perfume, spicy food and fragrant wine. The wood under her finger felt warm as she traced the etched roses on the black wooden wall beside her and followed Jen deeper into the Villa Rosa flamenco club. She glanced at her watch—what the heck? Ten at night!

  Like a night shift.
>
  The small bars and restaurants of the tiny alley on their way here had seemed filled with handsome swarthy men partnering exotic women with flashing eyes and red lips. A seething nightlife unlike any she’d seen before.

  It was how she imagined across-the-world Barcelona to be, rather than a neighbourhood that lay only twenty minutes from her Coogee flat. This vibrant subculture of predominantly Spanish-speaking streets felt like another dimension.

  As well as another era.

  Jen’s Diego, her ‘Spanish hunk’ in Jen’s words, owned and sang at the club they’d just entered. He’d been amused that Cleo, a flamenco-watching virgin, would see the last-minute guest dancer in the late show who by all accounts should not be missed.

  And why not? Her painful divorce was finally through. A year in her new job had settled her. She needed a new direction now to find the fun she’d been missing out on. Jen was advocating the advantages of a Spanish boyfriend. Not on Cleo’s menu but it was amusing to imagine.

  The room sat expectantly in semi-darkness, the stage a golden finger of light bathing the guitarist as he strummed a lilting tune that caught at Cleo’s throat and promised more.

  A dark-haired waitress swung a jug of fruit-filled sangria onto their table without asking and poured their first drinks into heavy wineglasses before she sashayed away.

  Cleo rested back in her chair and tried to believe this was Diego’s place of employment.

  This was totally exotic.

  Cleo sipped the cinnamon-and-apple spiced wine, loosened the sky blue scarf she’d worn to keep the night chill off her shoulders outside and allowed her gaze to roam as the music picked up in tempo.

  The guitar’s song seeped into her skin and infiltrated her senses to beat in her veins.

  A darkly dressed woman and a familiar man, Diego, stepped onto the stage and sat each side of the guitarist. Both began to clap rhythmically, and it was Diego’s lilting voice that pierced the semi-darkness as he began to sing.

  Her neck prickled.

  In Spanish, the lyrics held a haunting cadence that stirred Cleo’s skin to gooseflesh and she turned to see Jen staring with rapt attention at her boyfriend. Yep, she’d agree with that. He was good.

  Cleo’s eyes drifted back to the stage, gave up trying to decipher the meaning of the words with her only fair Spanish, and allowed the pure emotion of the music to soak into her like the sweet sangria she sipped.

  Both wine and music danced in her blood and made her itch to clap her hands along with the rest of the audience. Primitive feelings stirred against the calm and collected persona she projected. First came a young woman, dancing to the beat, her skirts swishing, hands flying, spinning and stamping.

  Then came an older woman. The experience of living the dance vibrant in every gesture—another span of many minutes passed watching another world.

  Wow, Cleo thought to herself. These performers were amazing.

  Music beckoned to something she didn’t understand as her foot began to tap. This whole night felt different. So fun. A crazy, completely wonderful thing to do for yesterday’s birthday which had passed with only Jen to congratulate her.

  ‘You look happy,’ Jen said, beaming across at her.

  ‘You’re right,’ Cleo said. ‘This is fabulous.’

  The room fell silent and the audience turned their heads as one to the bar.

  A tall, dark-clothed man stood with his back toward the audience ten tables from the stage. When he spun unexpectedly to face them the guitar whispered a taunting note of promise to shift the mood.

  In the dim light, Cleo couldn’t distinguish the man’s face, but the broad shoulders, strong chest and muscular arms under the black shirt were clearly defined. As were the long, muscular thighs clad in black jeans and strong calves in knee-high boots. He paused, poised, splendidly macho in silhouette.

  Cleo’s breath caught. The heels of his black boots glinted with gold and for a few beats of the mesmerising music he clicked them slowly where he stood.

  Coal-black hair hung long and straight, shielding both sides of his face until his head lifted and he stared straight at the musicians on the stage. Commanding them. They clapped faster.

  Now she could see his features and wondered if she would ever forget them again.

  A hard face, full of angles and harsh planes, yet as primal and piercing as the howl of a wild animal on the full moon. Strong straight nose, sharp cheekbones and an unsmiling mouth. When he strode forward nobody spoke, they barely breathed, awed by his charisma—riveted by the respect he ruthlessly demanded.

  She wasn’t sure if it was the arrogant tilt of his head, the nonchalant looseness of his fingers as they swung at his sides or the slow haughty strides of his long legs as he passed, but her eyes locked on the coiled strength and beauty of his movement like everyone else’s did. Then her gaze snagged on the taut backside unapologetically squeezed into those skin-tight trousers as he did a slow, languid climb of the two steps in front of them onto the stage.

  Holy moly.

  When this man moved there was no one else in the room.

  He glanced neither left nor right, simply owned the space as he strode to the sphere of gold light that waited to focus on only him. His chin dropped, black hair fell forward, again obscuring his features, booted feet snapped together as he stood motionless, fingers rigidly splayed.

  The guitar stopped with him.

  Until music, and the dancer, began to glide slowly, precisely, rhythmically perfect, gloriously arrogant. Faster the music went. Faster he spun and stamped and whirled, a story without words. Emotion soaked the air, wrapping its ethereal hand around Cleo’s heart, and she had no idea why but her mouth dried as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

  He spun and stamped, then stopped and stared haughtily over the heads of the audience, then spun again in a wild yet fluid poetry of movement that spoke without words. Called the long history of his ancestors into the hushed room.

  Cleo sat captivated by the most marvellous male she’d ever seen.

  This man’s carved-in-stone cheekbones and arrogant chin, the way he flung his head and flashed his eyes had an aristocratic beauty that clutched at her and refused to let go.

  There was something dangerously sensual that made her feel feminine and fragile and fascinated beyond reason as she stared at him, her heart thudding in time to his gold-heeled black boots.

  Her teeth grazed her lip as the rate of her breathing rose with the music.

  Her breath caught when he looked her way.

  Who knew even hair could be erotic? Thick strands of his black-as-night locks swung and swirled and bucked as his eyes caught and held hers.

  His eyes fixed on her. Then he turned away.

  She puffed out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

  Struggled to remember when she’d last had shameless, erotic thoughts about a man. Had she ever?

  Good grief.

  She forced herself to sit back and blow out the tension. Ground herself and shift the soles of her feet back and forward to feel the wooden floor beneath her shoes.

  Relationships had been scarce since the divorce. She’d dived into her overseas patient retrievals, working for an agency that mainly arranged transport and medical escorts to enable ill Australians to return home. Sometimes overseas visitors required medical supervision as well to return to their homelands. It was demanding but interesting work. Sometimes she was out of the country for a week or more at a time. Then there was the occasional labour ward shift work with Jen.

  That had been enough to curtail her social life.

  No time for dalliance. Let alone sex.

  The only males she saw were clients or doctors—and she’d learned her lesson about doctors. She’d just divorced one after all. None were men she’d think about in that way.

  This way.


  At least at this moment—with this man.

  Her mind imagined his sexy mouth on hers. Oh, my, she thought as her eyes clung like his clothes to his body. She almost laughed out loud.

  A fierce cape-swirling matador who moved like liquid added heat-stoking dance gestures that reached into her soul and from across the room cupped her face with a look when he stopped.

  When he snapped his heels together and focussed on her it was as if he circled her body with a wicked swirl of his large elegant hand and brushed her skin.

  The last thing she’d thought she’d feel tonight was heated thighs but right now she needed to shift in her seat and squeeze her knees together.

  He was looking at her.

  Again.

  Often.

  Now almost all the time. Whenever his head came back her way his eyes were on hers.

  As if speaking with his dance. Coal-black eyes bored into Cleo’s through the rhythmic music and flowing movement. Her hand crept to her chest.

  And always his eyes would clash and command her not to look away.

  She couldn’t.

  The way he twirled and twisted and suddenly stopped hypnotised her like a timid creature trapped in blinding headlights.

  When he finished, arms out, complete, as the music died, Cleo’s pulse rate had risen to somewhere akin to a medical emergency.

  The lights went on and applause and adoration rose like a tornado into the high roof. Then it finally died down as a surge of people swarmed him.

  Cleo sat back and let out a long shuddering breath.

  Surreptitiously she watched him speak to his adoring fans, raise his hand, bow briefly, then bend his head to speak to Diego, before striding away without looking in her direction.

  Her heart thudded and her skin tingled with an afterglow of excitement, definite arousal and a strange, hollow, spreading disappointment.

  Let down. Deserted. Stupid.