Tempting Her Heart

Marigold poked at the food on her plate. Her charmed existence was over. It ended the day her father died. They had had wealth, possessions, and an expensive way of life. She was accustomed to having anything she wanted. Now her many luxuries were gone. It was a hard fact to deal with and a situation she had to find a solution to overcome. No more salons, no more jewels, and especially no more extravagant clothes. Even her home was lost. The penthouse suite in the finest hotel in the city belonged to some obscure corporation. If she’d had any idea about the debts her father had collected, she might have curbed some of her excessive spending.

“What are you going to do, Marigold?” Her friend Lucille nibbled nervously at the edge of a pastry as they sat in the hotel dining room.

Located on the one hundred fiftieth floor, the quiet restaurant was centrally located in the highest structure in the world. The building was her parents’ creation, their pride and joy. How it could have been lost to financial debt still left her stunned. Nevertheless, no matter what, she intended to get back her inheritance—the lifeline to her past, the crowning heirloom for her future.

“I don’t know.” Marigold pushed her plate away, unable to eat and think at the same time.

“You haven’t even started looking for another place to live,” Lucille reminded her with that reprimanding tone of practicality.

“I know.” She sighed.

The hotel was the only place she felt at home. She had lived there all her life.

“The place is sold, Marigold.”

“I know. I know. Do you think I’d forgotten?” she snapped, overwrought with worry. “I’m sorry. I’m working on a plan. Really I am.”

“A plan? What plan? You know the new owner is going to catch on that you’re still living here, and for free.” Lucille frowned. “You don’t have any money to pay the kind of rent they’d want for the penthouse.”

Marigold watched her friend continue to take small bites of the pastry with the belief she wasn’t breaking any dieting rules. Lucille lived on the theory that if she didn’t actually eat the thing, but rather tasted it, there were no worries.

“I guess when I’m found out, I’ll concern myself then on where I should go.” She lifted a slice of toast, chomping into it with frustration. “Besides, it’s a corporation. It’ll be months of arguing amongst the board of directors before they decide who gets the penthouse suite.”

Marigold leaned back in the chair.

“And what if it’s sooner?” Lucille’s pessimistic tone disturbed her.

She wondered the same thing while lying awake in bed at night. Where would she go? How would she survive? What kind of trouble would there be?

“Never mind about that. Let’s discuss my plan.”

“What plan? I thought you didn’t know what to do.” Lucille froze with her pastry poised for another nibble, and stared at her. “It doesn’t involve doing anything illegal, does it?”

“I’m going to find a wealthy man and marry him.”

The pastry dropped from Lucille’s fingers to the plate on the table. “You’re going to marry a man just for money?” she gasped.

“Why else would I marry? It’s not as if I’d enjoy someone being in charge of my life.” She reached over and picked up the blueberry confection. “In the history books, women married for position and financial security all the time.”

“That was several hundred years ago. We’ve come a long way since then.”

“Oh, look who’s talking. You have a monthly inheritance check from your grandmother’s estate. When you marry, you get it all. It’s not like you’ve gone out and worked.”

“I’ll have you know, I’ve been managing my finances on my own since I was sixteen. I’ve done quite well with small investments. Just because I don’t have to get my hands dirty doesn’t mean I’m not capable of supporting myself.”

“So you won’t look to marry for money?”

“That will be the last detail on my list of merits for my future husband.”

“Oh, you have a list, and what might his number one quality be?”

Lucille snatched back her pastry. “I think love is the foremost necessity.”

Marigold had held that same naïve wish at one point. Now she had to think practically. “Well, for you that may be an option.” She got up and paced around the table. “You have money and can wait forever.”

“Why, thanks a lot. Your consideration of my single status is not very nice.”

“I’m sorry, Lucille. I meant your wealth gives you the time to find a man to love. If the government gets wind of my poor status, I’ll not have the luxury of even making my own choice. They’ll issue me some wretched misfit who has money, but can’t manage to get a woman to marry him even for that. If I don’t accept that, and if I don’t get married soon, I’ll be forced to live in the catacombs under the city streets with other homeless runaways. I don’t have the luxury of time anymore.”

Marigold saw the usefulness of the law; she just never believed it could affect her. Ever since it was passed over fifty years earlier, there had been conflicts. But the government was right; they couldn’t feed the poor forever. The welfare system, once a helping hand to single mothers, had turned into an encouragement for people not to try to get a job.

“You know you’re more than welcome to come live with my family. The government doesn’t enforce those laws against poverty outside the city.”

“Lucille, it’s nothing personal, but your family is a bit…a bit stifling. As is that country life. I’m used to the city, the hustle and bustle of people, and things like that. I could never live outside my native surroundings.”

“Even if it means living belowground?” Lucille shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I hear bad things happen down there.”

“Oh, how would you know that? Never mind, I’ll be married long before that should happen.”
“Well, you have it much easier than I do,” Lucille groaned. “If I had your looks, I would have been married long before now.”

“Don’t be absurd, Lucille. You’re beautiful.”

“I’m twenty-eight and I can’t remember the last time I was on a date. That’s termed a spinster according to the encyclopedia of social graces.”

“I told you to throw that antique book away. It’s making you think weird.” Marigold gripped Lucille’s hand. “Women don’t need men other than for procreation, and even then, if you’re married, you can buy sperm or just buy a child.”

“Weren’t you the one just talking about history and how women marry for money?”

“Dire circumstances lead me to take drastic measures. It doesn’t mean I like what I have to do.”

“Nevertheless, I don’t know what you’ve got planned for children, but I’m hoping to produce my own offspring, and I want to do it before I’m fifty!” Lucille yanked her hand away and stood. “I want to be loved and adored. I know this is hard for you to understand, but I like the idea of a man wanting to be in charge of me.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re an attractive, brilliantly intelligent woman. So you’re having a slump in dating. It doesn’t mean you have to get all freaked out by it. When the right man comes along, you’ll know it. He’ll treat you well and respect you as an equal. Now, no more talk of looking for a supposedly extinct Neanderthal. I have an invitation to a party at the Empire Ballroom. Some gala to celebrate some corporation’s something or other.”

“That’s very informative, Marigold.”

“Needless to say, it’s a posh event with a room full of rich people—wealthy men to be exact. You and I are going to find us suitable men to fit our lifestyle.” She closed her eyes. “I’m going to be rich again if it’s the last thing I do.”