Maxine Small is invisible in a crowded room—no one can see through all the extraneous layers of fat to the sensitive girl lurking beneath. No one except local heartthrob Noah Fenwick. But he, too, lets her down when he up and marries Maxine's best friend—the pretty, skinny best friend whom he always pretended to hate.

Maxine runs away to university and doesn't see Noah again for ten years. Slim now, she returns to her home town as a successful lawyer, hoping to lay the ghost that is Noah to rest.

Now with three children, Noah is trapped in a loveless marriage with no escape clause. Drawn toward him as strongly as ever, Maxine learns the true reasons behind his marriage to Cassie but, with the children being used as human bargaining tools, there's nothing Noah and Maxine can do about their feelings, is there?