In love, there are second chances ... Elijah wins Paulette's heart the moment he rescues her from the raging depths of the King's river. He doesn't judge her calloused palms and fingers -hardened by farm work and hand sewing or the cheap fabric sewn together to make her clothes. Elijah doesn't see her as the lowly handmaiden in the royal palace of Pica Valley. He sees her as an equal and treats her with a gentle kindness that makes her heart swoon. However, after the revelation of Elijah's royal identity, a not so subtle threat from his mother and the bitter rejection of her disappointed father, Paulette runs. She runs from her childhood home, the only life she has ever known and the man that once captured her heart and mind. In an instance Paulette is left to grieve the happily-ever-after she was never promised. Nineteen years later and a chance meeting at the King's river brings Paulette and Elijah face to face. Neither time nor distance had erased the love between them, but painful memories and secrets still linger. Will their love be enough to heal old wounds and rekindle what once was?