After her relatives betray her and leave her life in ruins, Chloe dies with nothing left to lose. Given another life through a strange bargain, she trades away her capacity for love. Cold and detached, she abandons her old home for boarding school. Only then do the people who broke her realize what they have lost. Their remorse comes far too late, especially when James, the academy's feared troublemaker, begins to awaken feelings Chloe believed she had buried forever.