Secret Seduction (20 page)

“I know. We’ve tried for years. She’s been on and off different medications. Amanda and I loved her the very best we could, but no matter what we do, she can’t seem to get over the fact that her biological parents abandoned her.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “For you, for your wife, for Chloe. It’s sad all around.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for. This whole thing is my fault.”

They lapsed into silence again. The senator looked dazed. Vanessa felt lost.

“Are you really my father?” she dared.

His eyes, wide and haunted, met hers. “Yes.”

“How?”

He took a deep breath. “I used to live across the street from your mother. We were just kids. She was seventeen, I was eighteen and I had a baseball scholarship to UT. I was getting out of the barrio. We were never serious, just kids fooling around.”

“And you had a baby.”

“Yes.” Robert Garcia’s eyes glistened. “But I never knew about you. Your mother never told me. I don’t know why. Maybe she was afraid I would take you away from her. Maybe she wanted you all to herself. Maybe she just wanted to hurt me by keeping you out of my life. The first time I knew you existed was when the Carlo Vega trial hit the news.”

He paused, swallowed.

It was tough on him, and Vanessa wasn’t inclined to make it any easier. She said nothing, just waited for him to continue. His face was twisted into an expression of despair. “The minute I saw your picture on television I knew you were mine. You look just like my mother—tall and beautiful and defiant. You were still calling yourself Trudy Valdez back then, going by your mother’s maiden name. I hired someone to research your background and then I knew for sure you were mine. It killed me when I found out all that you’d been through.”

She dropped her hands into her lap. “You were my anonymous benefactor. You paid for my medical training.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t come forward. You didn’t reveal yourself as my father.” This was the part that hurt the most. She could have had him in her life for the past fourteen years.

“Politics. I was terrified it would wreck my career, and I didn’t know how it would affect Amanda. And Chloe, she was only seven at the time. I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t forgive myself.”

“It’s okay,” she said, realizing that it was. “I managed. I survived and you did give me the ability to achieve my greatest dream of becoming a doctor.”

“I am so proud of you. I was in the audience that day, when you got your diploma from medical school.”

“Really?” For some reason, that got her right in the gut.

“You succeeded in spite of where you came from. I heard about how your mother turned her back on you at the trial. I can guess what you had to do to survive and I am so ashamed I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most.”

“It’s all over now.”

He sat up straight, looked her clearly in the eyes for the first time. “I do have some news.”

“Oh?”

“I hired someone to keep a watch on Vega. I was terrified he was going to come after you when he was out of prison. This morning I learned he violated his parole—bought a handgun. My guy turned him in to his parole officer and he’s going back to prison. That should take some of the worry off your shoulders.”

“Thank you for telling me and thank you for hiring Tanner to watch over me. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Robert smiled. “I didn’t hire him just to watch over you.”

“No?”

“I must confess to a bit of matchmaking. His late wife Maria was my sister’s daughter. Maria’s murder tore Tanner apart. I loved my niece, and Tanner is such a good man. He deserves a second chance with someone who will love him and be loyal to him. You’re loyal Vanessa, but you were afraid to let anyone get close to you. I understand why you were that way, but I didn’t want you to lead half a life because your childhood had been so bad. When I heard Vega was getting out of prison, I knew Tanner was the one I had to hire as your bodyguard. I said a prayer every night that you two wounded souls would find your way to each other,” he said.

Vanessa smiled back. “I told Tanner I didn’t believe in coincidences.”

Robert Garcia—the man who’d been secretly looking after her all these years—reached out to her. “I want to know you. Let me be the father I’ve never been able to be to you until now.”

Then Vanessa, who’d spent her life being guarded and leery of others, put her hand in his. They sat there in the waiting room as the sunlight faded. Neither moved to get up to turn on the light. Slowly, tentatively, they began to talk, feeling their way toward a new relationship.

And in the talking, they both found forgiveness.

TANNER FOUGHT BACK from the darkness with one thing on his mind—get to Vanessa. Protect Vanessa. Save Vanessa.

“Dr. Rodriquez, he’s awake.”

He didn’t know who spoke. His eyelids didn’t seem to want to cooperate and open up, but he knew immediately whose hand squeezed his.

Vanessa. She was all right. Relief passed through him in a shudder.

“Tanner,” she whispered, and he managed to pry his eyes open.

She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “You look gorgeous.”

“And you look like warmed-over mud.”

“Is that your expert medical opinion?”

She smiled even as her eyes misted with tears. She reached up to push a lock of hair from his forehead. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“You forgive me?” he said, “For keeping the truth from you?”

“Water under the bridge.”

“Chloe?” he asked.

Vanessa drew in her breath. “She’s in lockup on the psych ward.”

He could taste the acridness of regret and guilt. “I failed you. I didn’t protect you.”

She reached over to smooth out his bedsheets with the palm of her hand. “You were the one Chloe tried to kill. She wanted to hurt you in order to hurt me. To get even with me for what she perceived as me stealing our father’s love away from her.”

“You know about the senator?”

Vanessa nodded. “He’s been here. We’ve talked. He told me everything.”

“How do you feel about him?”

“It’s weird, finding out I have a father after all this time. It’ll take some getting used to, but I’ve forgiven him and he’s working on forgiving himself. I don’t know how things are going to go with him and his wife, but that’s something they’ll have to work out themselves. Oh and guess what?”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Turns out Robert was playing matchmaker with us. He thought if he put us together, we’d figure out we were perfect for each other.”

“The senator is a wise man.”

“Wise or rash, one of the two.”

“Did Chloe admit to trying to sabotage Confidential Rejuvenations reputation? Why did she do that?”

Vanessa shook her head. “Chloe didn’t do it. In fact, she adamantly denied being involved in the incidents.”

“And you believe her?”

“She finally told the truth about everything else. Why lie about that?”

He grunted. “So much for my prime suspect.”

“I guess the saboteur is still out there, but catching him or her is going to have to wait. You’ve got a long road to recovery ahead of you.”

He winced. “Don’t remind me.”

“By the way, you’re going to need someone to take care of you while you recuperate.”

He quirked a lopsided grin. “You offering?”

“I am. You’re coming home with me whenever they release you.”

“Now that’s a lifestyle I could get into.”

“Oh, I have some other news,” she said, and told him about Vega being arrested for violating his parole. “He’s going back to prison for a long time.”

“That should be a big relief.”

“It is, but you know, I’ve decided I’m not going to be scared anymore. Not of Vega, not of my past, not of love.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Especially since I’m madly in love with you, Dr. Rodriquez.”

“I love you, too, Tanner Doyle, and I don’t throw those words around easily,” she said.

“Really? Because I’ve always had a fantasy about making love to a naughty doctor in a hospital bed,” he teased.

“Are you nuts? You’ve just been through surgery.”

“But you know what they say about sexual healing.” He winked.

“It’s the best kind,” they finished in unison and grinned at each other.

They wrapped the box with duct tape and put it away in the attic.

“Goodbye,” Vanessa whispered.

Tanner wrapped his arm around her waist and they came back down the stairs together, feeling lighter than they’d felt in years.

He pulled her to his chest. “You know it’s been four weeks since we made love.”

“That shouldn’t be so tough for you to handle. You went four years without sex.”

“But that…” he said, dipping his head and leaning in for a kiss, “was before you.”

“So?” She giggled against his lips hovering above hers.

“So you turned me into a sex maniac. Four weeks without the feel of my body in yours is driving me insane. Come on, Doc, give me the green light.”

His warm, wet mouth felt like home. Later she would give in, take him by the hand and lead him to their bedroom, but for now, she just wanted to savor his kiss. It was like a warm blanket on a cold winter night. A sweet comfort she felt to the very marrow of her bones.

Tanner pulled away to press his lips to her forehead. “Ever since that night you picked me up at Emilio’s I’ve been head over heels for you. Even when we were so busy trying not to fall in love with each other, deep down, I knew you were the one who could breathe new life into me.”

Vanessa wrapped her arms around his neck and looked him in the eyes. “No regrets?”

“With you? Only that I didn’t tell you sooner that I was your bodyguard.”

“If you had, I’d have you booted out of Confidential Rejuvenations.”

“You would have,” he said. “Cracking the code to your heart wasn’t so easy. I had to take a bullet to get you to admit you loved me.”

He was right. She had been stubborn and scared and suspicious, but she was a changed woman now. Through knowing Tanner she was able to face her past and let it go. She’d been able to accept and forgive her father, and most of all, she’d been able to learn how to trust.

“I just realized something,” she said.

“Oh?”

“We haven’t consummated our relationship since we confessed to being crazy about each other.”

“I like where your thoughts are headed,” he growled. “What have you got in mind?”

“A secret seduction, babe. It’s what got us here in the first place.”

Then she took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. And wildly, happily, they made love as if it was their very first time.

SO TANNER DOYLE and Vanessa Rodriquez thought they had their happy ending. Fools. While their lives might be rosy, the lives of their contemporaries at Confidential Rejuvenations were about to get much, much worse.

Fools.

They had no idea there was a mole among them. Someone they trusted and believed in was about to pull the rug out from under their feet.

And Chloe was just the tip of the iceberg. She’d been so easy to manipulate, the stupid cow.

What luck to have discovered Dr. Rodriquez was Senator Garcia’s biological daughter. Chloe’s emotional fragility had been an added bonus.

First Mark Lawson. Then Chloe Garcia. The media would have a field day. At this rate, the minor thefts, petty vandalism and the other little acts of sabotage could stop altogether. The staff of Confidential Rejuvenations and the dark secrets they kept were already bringing about their own downfall.

Gleefully, the saboteur laughed. Hey now, we’re just getting this party started.

They had to be punished. Every last one of them.

And the next lamb to the slaughter was Julie DeMarco.

The stupid romantic woman thought no one knew about her secret affair. She hid and connived and deceived, and one way or another, she was going to be held accountable.

SECRET SEDUCTION

Copyright © 2008 by Lori Vanzura.

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