When Tessa hears from her mother, who left when Tessa was only five years old, it's a dream come true. She hurries off to the French countryside to see her mother for the first time in twenty years. But when she arrives, she finds a letter addressed to her: her mother had to flee from loan sharks, and she's leaving her rental cottages in Tessa's care! Confused, Tessa tries to get an answer out of Guy de Turaine, her mother's landlord, only to find out that the villagers hate her mother. To make matters worse, now that he knows she's her daughter, his gaze has gone ice cold!