Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the magnificent Tuscan villa just outside her small village. She likes to spy into the gardens and imagine that one day she'll live there. When Dante, the son of the villa's powerful owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden, she knows that her destiny is there, with Dante. But as they grow up, their romance jeopardizes everything they hold most dear. Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beautiful old country hotel on England's Devon coast has fallen on hard times, and its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer. The man she hires begins to transform the fortunes of the hotel, and her family, but why is he really there?