Allison Tate had everything a girl could ever want...except love. Born late in life to wealthy, elitist parents, she was paraded around like a dressed-up China doll, but never loved for herself. Allison's parents had her whole life arranged for her, including a loveless marriage, but Allison had other ideas. Determined to avoid being tied to a man she didn't love, she devoted all of her time and energy preparing to strike out on her own, but somewhere along the way Allison fell in love. Furious at being thwarted, her parents tried to financially destroy the man she loved as well as his mother, whom Allison adored, and would have succeeded but for the intervention of a kind elderly couple. With her parents on a leash, Allison relaxed and began enjoying life for the first time, but there was another menace on her horizon, a menace which threatened her very existence, and the man her parents had chosen to be her husband was the only one in a position to save her.