Lily Prescott, a romance novelist, is stunningly lovely, single, and lonely. She wants love but doesn't know where to look or who to trust. Her breakup a year earlier with Mitch Jaymison, a handsome, divorced doctor with whom she fell hopelessly in love, has left her feeling vulnerable and heartbroken.

When a chance meeting at a fundraising dinner brings Lily and Mitch together again, they embark on a deepening emotional relationship as they work to overcome their previous problems, and Lily struggles to put the emotional hurts of the past behind her. But this is difficult, not only because of Lily's deep-seated fears that Mitch will leave her again, but also because of interference from Lily's billionaire ex-fiance and nefarious happenings at the hospital and at the lake Mitch lives on.

Through elegant social occasions in town, sailing dates, and romantic beach walks at the lake, Lily and Mitch pursue their love again amidst an overshadowing uncertainty and increasing physical peril as they progress toward a final, challenging reckoning of themselves as a couple.