In 1975, Vietnamese orphan Cathy Carter arrives In England to begin a new life. Her childhood in the New Forest is idyllic, but when she is fifteen tragedy strikes. Her adoptive parents are killed in a fire, and she is left with her strange, uncommunicative adoptive twin sisters. Sad and lonely, Cathy joins a local theatre group, where she becomes besotted with one of the directors. Nico is forty, and very good-looking, but he preys on vulnerable young girls, and has set his sights on Cathy. She is petite and pretty, and she is due to inherit a fortune.

On her sixteenth birthday, Nico blackmails the twins into allowing Cathy to marry him. Their marriage soon turns sour, and after their daughter, Sammy-Jo, is born Cathy escapes with the child to Spain. But one day, Nico finds them...