Trust Me (5 page)

Having done well in high school she attended San Diego
State University and completed a political science degree as well as fulfilling
her pre-law requirements.  Her parents had been absolutely thrilled when
Georgetown University’s law school had accepted her.  Her graduation from
law school had been a climactic day for her in more ways than one.  It was
on that day that Tom Simmons, her biological father, had walked back into her
life.

She had not seen her father in twenty-four years and
had no memory of him.  Her mother had given her a picture of him, but
refused to talk about her first husband.  His arrival that day had been
completely unexpected, but Alaina had eventually welcomed the opportunity to
know the man who had helped bring her into the world.

After the graduation ceremonies were over she had gone
to join her mother, her brother Allen and Stanley, the man Alaina had always
called Dad.  They had promised to take her to dinner to at one of
Georgetown's elite restaurants to celebrate.  When she found her family
she noticed they looked upset and that they weren't alone: there was a strange
but oddly familiar man with them. 

Her mother looked strained, to say the least, was the
first to speak, “Alaina, this is Tom Simmons, your father.”

Alaina had been taken completely off guard and her
only response was, “My what?”

“Honey, it's your father.  He decided he really wanted
to see you graduate.”  It was obvious that her mother was having as great
a difficulty dealing with the situation as Alaina.  Francine Warner was a
composed woman who was not easily upset.  Her small form was rigid with
obvious tension. Her light blond hair was mussed as if she had been running her
hands through it. 

Alaina looked at her stepfather, Stanley Warner and
then at her biological father and wondered where he had been all of her life
while Stanley had taken care of her.  The two men were the antithesis of
each other. Tom Simmons' dark brown hair was unkempt and a bit too long. He
wore jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, and his face appeared aged and haggard from
years of hard living. Stanley Warner, conversely, was immaculate in his
appearance, dressed in a gray suit.  His sandy brown hair was neatly
trimmed and combed as usual, his kind and gentle face looked years younger than
his true age.

She tried to stem the resentment flowing through her
veins but it was difficult.  Meeting her real father was what she had
always wanted, but as he stood before her all she could feel was anger. 
Sarcasm filled her voice as she looked at her father and said, “Nice of you to
show up.  Aren't you just a little late, by about twenty-four years?”

Her mother intervened, the anxiety still clearly
written on her face.  “Alaina, please give your father a chance.  It
was difficult for him to come here today.”

Tom Simmons, who up until this point had remained
silent, chose this moment to plead his case.

“Alaina, I know you’re angry, but please give me a
chance to explain.  I really want an opportunity to work things out with
you.  I know I’ve probably chosen an awkward time to re-enter your life
but if I didn't do it today, I would’ve never had the guts.  Please don't turn
me away.  I really want to get to know you.”

As Alaina stood there looking at his pleading face she
couldn't miss the sincerity in his eyes.  She also remembered all of the
times as she was growing up that she had wondered what her father was
like.  Now he stood in front of her offering her childhood dream. 
She realized that it would be absurd to her turn her back on his offer although
she wasn't quite sure if she could ever resolve her anger at his
abandonment. 

She looked at Tom Simmons and said, “All right, why
don't we meet tomorrow for lunch.  Tonight I’m having dinner with my mom
and dad.”  Her statement was quite clear.  She was not going to drop
everything for him and she would always consider Stanley Warner her father.

Tom Simmons looked grateful at her response. “Here's
my cell number Alaina.  Call me tomorrow and we'll have lunch.  Oh,
and congratulations on your graduation.  I'm very proud of you,” he turned
and looked at Francine and Stanley Warner. “Thanks both of you for being so
understanding I hope I haven't caused too much of an upset.”

Stanley responded, “Oh, it's been upset all right, but
I’ve a feeling things will work out for the best.” He, quite surprisingly, did
not seem at all threatened by the sudden appearance of Alaina's real
father. 

Alaina marveled at his strength and unflagging support
during a time that must be as difficult for him as it was for her. 

She grabbed the arms of both of her parents and said
with a smile, “Come on you two, how about that graduation dinner you promised
me? Oh, and I guess we should bring Allen too.” She laughed as she gave her
brother a teasing grin.

Tom Simmons took his cue and said, “Goodbye. I'll look
forward to spending some time with you tomorrow, Alaina.”  With that brief
farewell, he turned and walked away.

Alaina watched him go and looked at her parents with a
shaky smile. “Are you two ready to go?” 

Her mother pulled her into her arms. “Yeah, baby,
let's go for dinner.”

The next day Alaina met her father for lunch, a
meeting that she had expected would be even more difficult than the
first.  However, Tom Simmons was a determined man.  He insisted he
wanted to become his daughter's friend and that in no way did he ever think he
would replace Stanley Warner as her father.  He realized that he had
forfeited his right to fatherhood long ago but he hoped, he told her, that it
was still possible for them to develop a friendship.

Tom's persistence and Alaina's own deep need to get to
know her real father resulted in their being able to build a relationship after
years of separation.  It didn't happen overnight, on the contrary the
relationship gradually evolved.  However, Alaina acknowledged, it
certainly wouldn't have happened at all had it not been for Tom's consistent
pursuit of her company.  Wherever she was, he made the effort to visit
with her, which had been quite a difficult task since she had spent the year
after graduation working as a research assistant to a law professor, and as a
result had traveled extensively across the country.  Tom had met her in
places like Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, and Denver while she was working.  Of
course he had always told her he was there on business, but she knew that he
would often arrange his business schedule to meet hers.  He was lucky he
had told her often, that being a sales representative for a computer company
gave him a great deal of flexibility in how he scheduled his business trips.

Tom Simmons' efforts to win his daughter's affection
did not go un-rewarded.  Alaina gradually felt her anger dissipate and was
able to put the past behind her as she grew to like Tom more and more.  He
was charming, funny and a good listener and despite her initial animosity at
his unexpected return to her life, Alaina found herself valuing their new-found
relationship.

  Two years after his unexpected arrival
into her life, Tom Simmons died of cancer, leaving a grieving daughter
behind.  Shortly before he passed away he told Alaina that he had been
diagnosed with bone cancer two years before.  It was this news that had motivated
him to contact her, his estranged daughter, to salvage their relationship
before he died.   Alaina was grateful for the time she had with her
father, but regretted he hadn't contacted her sooner.

At the funeral in Seattle, Alaina met his second wife,
Delia Simmons.  Delia looked every bit the aging hippy: her hair was long
and gray, she wore an oversized black t-shirt with a long flowing black skirt,
and on her feet were sandals.  Initially, Alaina thought she and Delia
would be able to console each other in their grief, but much to her dismay
Delia had displayed nothing but open hostility towards her.  The reason
for this became apparent at the reading of the will.  Tom had very little
in the way of monetary endowments to leave behind, but the guardianship of his
records relating to his involvement with the OAS appeared to be highly valued
by Delia.  She was furious that Alaina had been given the responsibility
to oversee access to Tom's documents.  At the time of the reading of the
will, Alaina did not realize how problematic the guardianship of her father's
papers was going to be.

Shortly after her father's funeral, Delia contested
the Will and sued her for the custody of Tom's papers and lost.  Now the
FBI, in the midst of their investigation of numerous bombings that had occurred
in the previous two years across the United States was attempting to use those
same papers to prove that both Tom Simmons and the OAS had been responsible for
the crimes.  Although Alaina still did not believe that her father had
been involved in any terrorist activities, she was beginning to wonder what was
in those documents that made everybody so intent on acquiring them.  She
herself had not seen them since the papers had been donated to the archival
repository.  Her only responsibility was for monitoring access.  Her
father had not granted her access, a fact, which had never been a great concern
to her since she had assumed that they were just the administrative documents
that would have been created and accumulated by any organization.

As Alaina sat on her couch eating her soup, she was
beginning to see Delia's actions as rather suspicious.  Prior to her
conversation with Donovan Prentice this morning she had assumed Delia had acted
out of a deep resentment towards Alaina's relationship with her father. 
Now it appeared that there might be something a great deal more important
underlying Delia's motives for wanting control of Tom's papers.  What was
the OAS really involved in?  Alaina refused to believe her father had been
mixed up in terrorist activities, but there was something in his papers that
his wife was obviously trying to protect.  The problem was that she had no
idea what that could be unless what Donovan had told her this morning was true,
and that was unthinkable.

However, she was a lawyer, not an
investigator.   It would be her job next week to defend Tom Simmons’s
constitutional right to privacy.  She reminded herself that the issue was
not one of innocence or guilt.  Her only role, as requested in her father's
Will, was to protect his papers.  Things were becoming very complicated
and she was too emotionally involved to successfully dismiss the issue of guilt
or innocence. Donovan was an added distraction she just didn’t need and he was
diverting her attention to the case which should be her primary focus.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Donovan and the
forbidden attraction she felt for him.  He was certainly easy to fantasize
about. What would it be like to go on a real date with him? To have the
pleasure of drowning in those deep blue eyes while he melted her with one of
his intense stares? Really she couldn’t even remember the last time she had
actually wanted to date.  The guys she kept meeting just weren’t doing it
for her. The chemistry between her and Donovan was just what she had been
waiting for, but now because of their jobs the likelihood of that happening was
about zero to none.  Shit, life was unfair. She smiled slightly as she
imagined in different circumstances bringing him home after a date.  She
would invite him in for a drink, but he would know she was interested in
something more.  They would have some wine or maybe a brandy while they
sat close on her couch getting to know each other.  She was sure he
wouldn’t take too long before he set his drink down and leaned over slowly to
kiss her gently on the lips.  At first he would be tentative, giving her
an opportunity to pull away, but once he sensed how turned on she was things
would move quickly.  He would become slightly more aggressive pushing her
down on the couch, pressing his hard body against her.  She could almost
feel his chest against hers.  As she imagined him lifting her blouse and
sucking on her nipple, she lay back on the couch, lifted her hand and squeezed
while sliding her other hand into her pants to find her clit.  She groaned
as she thought of him sucking on her nipples.  She pinched them while
pretending it was Donovan tugging on them with his mouth. She rubbed her clit,
squirming on the coach while she thought of him moving down her body and
sucking on her clit and lapping away at her pussy. She was so wet and God she
wanted him inside of her!   She rubbed harder thrusting her hips at
her imaginary lover. Placing two fingers inside herself she thrust harder,
picturing Donovan’s hard cock thrusting in and out of her wet slit.  
She moved her hand back to her clit circling her finger furiously while
squeezing her
breast
with her other hand. All the
while she visualized Donovan’s, hands, Donavan’s fingers, and Donavan’s
cock.  She groaned as the shattering orgasm overtook her.  She felt
the incredible much needed release and envisioned Donovan groaning and coming
inside her.   She lay panting on the couch feeling disappointed that
her lover had only been in her mind.  “Shit!” she said, “It’s always a
downer when it’s over and you’re still alone.” 

Alaina wondered out loud, “Why am I on the pill when the only person I
have sex with is
myself
?” She smirked, “Although I’m
always satisfied this way.” Sighing she got up off the couch and took her soup
bowl to the kitchen.  It was probably best if Donovan remained her fantasy
lover.