It's 1952 in New York City -- the height of the Red Scare. When the sheltered secretary of a prominent book editor becomes obsessed with the story of a glamorous French lipstick, she becomes convinced that it was the story she was born to write. To do it, however, she must overcome her belief that surrendering to passion of any kind is dangerous -- especially when she enters into a high stakes game of kiss and tell with the editor's star author, who is in desperate need of a story and a muse. They fight for the right to tell the tale, and ultimately, for the right of an author to tell their own truth.