Driven from the splendor of New Orleans back into the Bayou...Living again in a humble shack, Ruby is determined to make a secure and happy home for her precious daughter, Pearl. At her side once more is Paul Tate, her first love, now a man of dazzling wealth. When he whisks Ruby away to his grand house, it seems she can forget the shocking reason she and Paul must wed in secret and remain husband and wife in name alone. But the grand walls of Cypress Woods cannot shut out the cold eyes of Paul's mother. And when Ruby's venomous twin sister, Gisselle, arrives to taunt her with news of Pearl's secret father, the twisted lengths to which Ruby will go for love suprise even her. To save her family and her heart, she forms an alliance with her greatest enemy to do the unthinkable.