<p>Driven by desperation, eighteen-year-old Emily enters into a pact with Hugh Blake, a dying man old enough to be her grandfather. Arriving on <em>Emu Downs</em> as Hugh&rsquo;s wife, she runs the gauntlet of unkind gossip and suspicion as she struggles to make a place for herself in his household, and in the wider St Denis society.</p><p>Believing Emily to be a hardened gold-digger, Ryan Farrelly, Hugh&rsquo;s station manager, is drawn to her against his better judgement. Even when he realises he has misjudged her, as a married woman she is still forbidden to him.</p><p>Then it becomes known that Hugh is dying, and that Emily is pregnant; supposedly with Hugh&rsquo;s baby.</p><p>Unbeknownst to either Emily or Ryan, Hugh writes a will which gives them the opportunity to explore their hidden feelings for each other. But will pride keep them apart?</p><p>Can Ryan accept another man&rsquo;s child and raise little Didi as his own?</p><p>Emily, on the brink of discovering true love, doubts her own heart when a girl from Ryan&rsquo;s past reappears. Will Vivienne&rsquo;s vicious jealousy succeed in driving them apart?</p>