Two extraordinary teenagers meet in New York's central park and spend the day together. No girls could have been more different. Hayley Hamilton, a beautiful child prodigy of wealthy and aristocratic British parents and Christine Horowitz, a free-spirited adopted daughter of Hollywood moguls and already an award-winning writer. Their differences bond the two girls and although they don't see each other for many years, they have entered each other's hearts in friendship. Returning from Hayley's Wellesley graduation on their way to vacation in Southampton, sabotage brings down the family's private Learjet, killing Hayley's parents. The lone survivor, Hayley awakes from a coma and enters a trauma center to recover. The son of her mother's friend, Barbara, British Psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Gabriel-Johns, goes to her and lifts her out of her trauma. Upon leaving the center, Hayley sequesters herself in her parent's Park Avenue penthouse where she feels safe from the outside world. She builds a life inside and surrounds herself with people she trusts - a young couple, her personal bodyguard, Miguel Alverez, his wife, Marisol, who is her housekeeper - and Arthur Symington, her grandfather's manservant, who is as loved and trusted as any family member. During the plane crash, Hayley saved her mother's Yorkshire terrier puppy, Diva. Walking Diva with Miguel at her side one morning, a homeless woman confronts Hayley. She gives her a paper on which she wrote her dream about a swan, snake, and horse, and warns her to beware of a black panther. The little vagrant takes up residence in a nearby boarded up doorway and becomes somewhat of a demanding family pet. Peter has moved forward in his career and becomes the dean at the Simon Wessely Center for Research in Traumatic Shock and Panic Disorders. A university colleague, Zara Chandler, seeks his help and asks him to hold a session on a messageboard she administrates. Zara's interest in Peter is not limited to collegial, she has matrimonial designs on him as well. Although Peter has no interest in her as a potential mate, she has not intention of letting him get away. After five years of loneliness and isolation, Hayley begins to think about Peter. She writes to him and he is delighted to hear from her. He tells her his wants to be her friend and not her doctor, but suggests she join the messageboard where he will hold a session for people who have suffered traumas. She signs on and attends the session. While Hayley lives in isolation, Christine, who graduated from Stanford as a communications and journalism major, begins to work her way up the ladder in television news production. Looking for new angles, she tries researching opinions about world events and joins the online messageboard. The unexpected dividend is that she connects with Hayley again. Hayley isn't the only interest Christine finds on the messageboard. She attracts the attention of Jacques Bonnier, who woos her and tells her he has fallen in love with her. Christine's co-worker and friend, Kalia Malika McMoore, or Pookie, warns Chris that Jaxx, as he calls himself, is only a cyber lothario. But to Chris, he is the real thing, and she succumbs to his attention and French charm. At Christmastime, they all come to New York and meet for high tea at the Ritz. Seeing the person for the first time and knowing who they really are or have become, means relationships either move forward or reality replaces fantasy. Hayley attempts to rejoin the world with the help of Christine and Peter's family in Oxfordshire. Peter comes back to Hayley as her lover, but they are all unaware that attached to Peter is the very danger she sought to escape. This is a tightly woven tale with startling twists and turns. In its telling it is sometimes witty, sometimes reflective and replete with dazzling people and glamorous locations, of romance and suspense, all exquisitely wrapped in a story of love, revenge, retribution