Sophie Whelan is a modern super woman. But as Sophie's 40th birthday looms, her seamless life reveals disturbing web-like fractures. Conflict with her boss, blossoming jealousy of her husband's femme fatale business partner, and her feelings of hopeless inadequacy as a mother and daughter, are cracking the edifice of her life. Rescue may be at hand when Lillian Parker, a wealthy widow who befriended Sophie during her university days, makes Sophie an irresistible offer. Why, then, does Sophie hesitate? The answer is the reappearance of Lillian's nephew, Will Shannon, the great unresolved love of Sophie's life. As she remembers the vivid drama of their college romance, Sophie confronts the choices she has made in life and in love and looks for the one answer that has always eluded her: what does she really want?