When a young woman sells her father's masterpiece but delivers what is discovered to be a copy instead, the art collector's retribution has tornadic consequences. As a child, Crystal was made famous and portrayed somewhat mystically in her late father's paintings. Now a reclusive but hardworking young woman who has begun to think of herself as the "painted lady," it has become necessary to sell her father's masterpiece in order to remain in her family home, which others refer to as her ivory tower. She continues to support her mother, an insecure former Miss Mississippi, who insists on living in style in Memphis, and who has always resented Crystal's importance to her father as well as her "starring" place in his paintings. When the art collector, a prominent and powerful Memphis businesswoman, learns the portrait is a copy, although she knows it was inadvertent, she takes retribution. Her actions set in motion events that open up Crystal's world to love, pleasure, mystery, and danger. She finds she must shelter a young mixed-race family and strive to understand her parent's inability to live together so long ago. She will also have to deal with three men the "payback" slings into her life, all of which think they only want to love her and not hurt her. Also, Crystal will learn from the one person who always has had her best interests at heart - the lady in the fairy-tale house next door - of a secret which will affect her from that moment on. Crystal will end up fighting for her life, and she will have more reason than she could have suspected or hoped for.