After her parents' death in a car accident, Nicola takes a job as secretary to the romantic novelist Lucy Treryn. The old lady seems pleasant, if a little brusque, and Nicola finds herself falling in love with her quiet, schoolteacher grandson Zachary. Her other grandson, Alex, is quite a different character. An arrogant, good-looking charmer, he is determined to seduce her, and will not take 'no' for an answer—until an unpleasant scene leaves him humiliated and Nicola severely shaken up. But Alex is not a man to take rejection lightly. First he frames her for theft, then he rakes up her tragic past—and his final act of revenge could be the most dangerous of all . . .