Lilly Turner is happy with her life as Manager of her father's hotel the Royal. Her choice of vocation meets with disapproval from her Grandfather Patterson for he likens her to father's father, the one-time wayward Pop Turner.

So when Jack Harris turns up, he tests her will power and her rules; never drink alcohol, only employ locals, never get involved with an employee and everything she has worked towards for the past eight years is threatened.

Jack Harris was raised in a hotel in Darwin. His birth certificate reads, father unknown. A builder by trade, he left Darwin in search of his father and was overseas for two years. But Jack is no ordinary drifter living from job to job, meal to meal as he portrays. He is a wealthy man owning several hotels and only stops in at the 'Royal' to add it to his collection...that was until he laid eyes on Lilly.