Many in London society envy Tess Ridgeway, Countess of Aubry, for having snared the handsomest, most charming man in England, but after two years of marriage to the volatile earl, Tess knows there's nothing charming about her husband and nothing to envy about her hellish marriage. Desperate, afraid for her own life and that of her unborn child, Tess manages to escape, fleeing to the southern coast of France, where she collapses, ill and exhausted, in the garden of the reclusive artist, Alexandre Dumond.

Alexandre, who savagely guards his privacy, resents this fire-haired beauty that Fate has brought to his doorstep. But he can't turn his back on her, and when she proposes that he hire her as his housekeeper, Alexandre reluctantly lets her into his solitary world. There, they find an unexpected haven in each other's arms, but will it last forever? Or will the dark secrets harbored by both of them tear their love apart?