She was running to adventure, he was running from destiny.

Lady Sarah Halden stows away on the wrong boat when she thinks to enter a sailing race with her brother, Lucky. She lands in the company of Lucky's business partner, Ian Ross-Mackeever, heir to the first Earl Mackeever. Sarah finds the gruff captain handsome and desires him in ways she'd never wanted a man before. With the help of a salacious little book filled with erotic images, Sarah decides to seduce her captain. At the halfway point of the race, instead of simply letting her return home with him, Lucky forces Sarah and Ian to marry.

Ian Ross-Mackeever doesn't believe in family. His own father sent him away when he was a boy to live in a different country with a grandfather who despises him and aunts who didn't know what to do with him. He was immediately sent away to school where he became friends with Lucky Gualtiero, a young man whose family is everything Ian's is not.

After a rocky start upon discovering his stowaway, Ian warms to Sarah's presence in his life during the voyage home from New York. Her sense of adventure and unwavering love for family forces Ian to embrace her affections and the possibilities of a future with her at his side. Sarah shows Ian that running from destiny is more difficult than accepting fate, and every day spent not cherishing those who love you is a day wasted.