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hospital as safe as it can possibly be for both our patients and the staff.”
    He paused to make eye contact with the assembly. He had a commanding presence, she’d give him that. Vanessa gritted her teeth, knotted her hands in her lap.
    Brad leaned over, touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.” Vanessa assured him with a smile and forced herself to unclench her hands and her jaw.
    “Scary business,” Brad murmured.
    “Yes,” she said, but she wasn’t talking about the hospital sabotage.
    “To that end,” Tanner continued, “I will be interviewing each one of you separately to get your take on the events and to elicit your opinion on how best we can meet your security needs while you’re on the grounds of Confidential Rejuvenations.”
    Great. Terrific. Just what she wanted. A one-on-one with the man she’d shagged in a moment of weakness.
    “What is this?” Vanessa heard one of the doctors behind her mumble. “Are we suspects?”
    “Not surprising, after what Mark Lawson pulled,” another doctor whispered in response.
    Dr. Butler raised a hand, quelling the hushed discussion going on behind her. “I know you’ll all give Tanner your complete cooperation. Patient and staff safety is our utmost concern during this trying time. Mr. Doyle wants to start the interviews right away. I have your schedules in front of me and I see that, Dr. Rodriquez, you have an opening in your schedule.”
    Vanessa was caught off guard and didn’t have a ready excuse. “I was planning on using my downtime to catch up on my surgical notes.”
    “It can wait,” Dr. Butler said. “The sooner Tanner can interview the staff, the sooner he can implement his new security measures.”
    Vanessa sighed. Dammit.
    She could feel the heat of Tanner’s gaze, cool and assessing, on her face. She’d cooperate because Dr. Butler told her to, but she still couldn’t shake her suspicion there was a hidden agenda behind the scenes.
    After all, what were the odds that the sexy stranger she’d picked up on Friday night would end up being a coworker by Monday morning?

    “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Vanessa demanded, eying Tanner suspiciously.
    Tanner smiled. “My job.”
    She looked gorgeous, if somewhat uptight, in a high-necked lavender blouse with prim gray tweed suit and matching pumps. The outfit was all for show, part of the glossy straitlaced image she’d perfected, but he knew firsthand this woman was anything but. Who was she trying to fool most? Other people? Or herself?
    They were standing in her office. Like any good security expert, Tanner took in every detail of the room. From the pricey mahogany desk to the overstuffed chair upholstered in Corinthian leather to the heavy tapestry at the windows overlooking the rolling green lawns of Confidential Rejuvenations.
    The hospital itself possessed a presence. It was almost as if the place had a personality of its own. Regal yet soothing. Seething with secrets and yet somehow coy, with the expensive modern art paintings displayed in the hallways and the spa treatment facility that rivaled any resort hotel’s.
    How much of this room was Vanessa? How much simply the persona of the boutique hospital?
    He noted nothing was out of place. On the desk, the papers in her in-box were stacked as orderly as those in the out-box. The pens were arranged in order of their color in the holder—blue, black, green, red. The paper shredder at the side of the desk was empty, as was the trash can across from it.
    Vanessa Rodriquez was a neat freak.
    Diplomas hung on the walls paneled with real cherry-wood. She’d done her undergraduate work at Trinity University in San Antonio, graduated summa cum laude and gotten her medical degree from the University of Texas.
    Robert had told Tanner she had an IQ of 156. Not for the first time, he wondered how and why the senator knew so many details about the testy Dr. Rodriquez. He wanted to believe the man wasn’t having an affair with her,