 The Spring of 1991. Against the brutal backdrop of human trafficking in Southeast Asia, a seven-year-old American girl named Sybil Harrington is violently abducted on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand. Her parents are Clay and Kimberly Harrington, entry-level employees of the American Embassy in Bangkok, who find themselves embroiled in suspicions of infidelity and increasing marital dysfunction immediately prior to the onset of this unspeakable tragedy. The desperate search for their only daughter is futile, yielding no verifiable result, the sudden conclusion of Clay s brief diplomatic career and the possible end of their union. Despite the absence of a body, all indications are that young Sybil Harrington did not survive. The Summer of 2001. Seventeen-year old Sybil Harrington is very much alive, and has grown to the brink of adulthood in a foreign culture into which she has assimilated as a native in order to survive. After 10 long years of servitude on the streets of Bangkok and Pattaya, during which time there was great adversity and a severe beating in the wake of a thwarted escape attempt, she is rescued via purchase of debt by Toshiro Arakawa, a benevolent, handsome, and mysterious Japanese businessman. Becoming his personal servant and confidante, Sybil tends an exquisite koi pond on a private Chiang Mai compound and develops an erotic attraction for the guarded and jealous stranger, unaware that he holds the key to her past and the fate of her heart.