Doms Rey Raleigh and Felipe Durante let Mattie Cayenne get away. She left the island to pursue her degree in veterinary medicine, and then she married. But now she's home again, and they have learned only part of the truth about the abuse she suffered. Mattie Cayenne never had any intentions of returning home. She watched her uncle abuse her mother while he lived with them, and then the man she met and married in Alabama, Clay Hale III, turned out to be an abuser as well. It took Mattie years to escape him, his family, and his attorneys. Through a stroke of luck, Mattie now owns the local animal hospital on Sybaris Cove, and the two men she let get away are back in her life. But can she heal from the abuse in her past, even with Rey and Felipe's patient, tender love? Or will her past always haunt her?