Privilege, it was what she longed for and fought for through a lifetime filled with ambition, love, and betrayal. Yet, it could not protect her from herself. Privilege for the young girl, Emalie Bequier, living in a Paris slum as the First World War begins, privilege means more than money. And for the woman of wealth and power she becomes, privilege will demand the greatest sacrifice of all. Armed with beauty and a passionate determination to obliterate her past, Ema makes her way from the sewing rooms of a great Paris fashion house to a secretary's desk at the distinguished firm of Saxon/Vaillant. There she meets Julian Saxon, an English baronet's son, born to all that Ema craves. he is a soldier headed back to the war-and to his wife in England. But Julian Saxon becomes the grand passion of Ema's life, the man to whom she is irrevocably bound despite their different origins and the tragedy that ends their affair. She bears is baby and then surrenders it in a devil's bargain, made to secure the Saxon inheritance for Julian's child. Ema is forced to begin again in a new country with a new name. As Emanuelle Beranger, she starts her climb to success in New York, first as social secretary to a demanding East Side matron, then as a society editor for a newspaper owned by Harding Ellis, a self-made millionaire whom she soon marries. She is carrying Harding's child, her secrets sequestered resurges to threaten her hard-won security.