Description: From her secret perch at the top of the stairs, Gabriella Harrison watches the guests arrive at her parents' lavish Manhattan town house. At seven, she knows she is an intruder in her parents' lives. Gabriella believes, as she is told, that she is to blame for her mother's rage -- and her father's failure to protect her. Her world is a confusing blend of terror, betrayal, and pain. Her parents' aristocratic world is no safeguard against the abuse that knows no boundaries, respects no person, no economic lines.

Gabriella is given her first reprieve when her father disappears, and her mother abandons her to a convent. There, Gabriella's battered body and soul begin to mend. And a young priest comes into her life. Father Joe Connors never questioned his vocation until Gabriella entered the confessional and shared her soul. Confession leads to friendship. And friendship grows dangerously into love. But their relationship leads to disaster as Joe must choose between the priesthood and Gabriella.

With profound insight, Danielle Steel has created a vivid portrait of an abused child's broken world, and the courage necessary to face it and free herself from the past.

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