For businessman Hugh Wellesley, the violent waking nightmare begins with the sparse report in the morning newspaper. A woman's body recovered from the River Dart in Devon... identified as that of Sylvie Mathieson... the corpse stabbed and bound...

Should he admit that she had once been his lover? Or let others discover the truth for themselves? Sylvie had always been exotic, unconventional, alluring. Now with her death comes an unexpected betrayal—as another truth emerges which will take even Hugh by surprise.