By any measure, she is a success. By any measure that is, except her own. Ivy Livingstone has entrée into Washington DC's political elite, lives in an exclusive neighborhood and sends her son to a sought-after private school. But her beautiful life is a gilded cage. She is independent, but alone. And unfortunately, very few men are confident enough to believe they are in Ivy's league. Eli Thomason has all the confidence in the world, except when it comes to his own judgment about women. And his attraction to Ivy Livingstone proves him right. She is everything he shouldn't want: a woman above his station and beyond his means. He overreached once before and still lives with the heartbreaking consequences, so why does he find it so difficult to leave Ivy alone? And if their own baggage isn't enough, Ivy and Eli have to contend with circumstances around them that seem to confirm their worst fear: that the bond they're beginning to build can't possibly last.