y. vonne beck survives the abduction of her beloved child jonathan by his long-lost father, and mother and son are reunited. but she now faces an excruciating breakup with the man she finally found love with, asher zilbeh. vonne sets out to change her life: a new apartment, a new career and a new husband. she works hard to better herself and even harder to extricate asher from her soul. a humble request for leniency takes vonne to new york city. a terminal diagnosis melts her hardened heart and she relents to ken's appeal to visit his son in person, after she'd had him banned from entering canada six years ago. in a city of millions of people it seems unimaginable; still, there on a sidewalk in the heart of manhattan he stops and stares at her. vonne has not seen asher since he snatched jonathan away from ken in japan and returned him to her waiting arms. her heart begins to race. she can't bear to see him and rushes off as tears flood her eyes. that happenstance and continued coincidental meetings spark a raging fire in asher. he needs to find her, to get through to her. he wants her to know the truth. however, the truth comes with a tower of guilt. a profound hurt burgeons as painful realities set in, take root and sprout ineffable regret. vonne's busy yet stable life is suddenly inundated with torturous complexity--with the truth buried deep inside. vonne lets go of her pragmatic sensibilities and follows her heart, which leads her through a maze of emotional turmoil: shock, awe, anger, dread and fear. can love be waiting on the other side, and will she find the strength, at last, to accept it?