She escapes heartache by getting lost in the melody and finds love in the unlikeliest of places.

Maddie Martin’s first weekend at college is nothing like she’s used to. It’s wild, like the wilderness on which the University of Bellam Springs sits. Roped into going to a fraternity party, she literally runs into Kyle Hadley. The boy she’s loved since she was nine. The boy she promised all of her firsts to.

But that was before his father killed her parents.

Determined to stay away from him, she throws herself into her music. Practicing piano eases her heavy heart, calms the sadness, and pushes away images of Kyle’s face.

Until it doesn’t.

Her music professor asks her to play a duet for their annual Winter Gala. Doing so means she’ll be assured another full ride scholarship. It’s an opportunity she can’t pass up. But Kyle is the other half of the duet. And that means hours and hours of practicing. Weeks of seclusion—just the two of them.

Right away, their time together is about more than just music. Too soon, the inevitable happens. She falls in love with him all over again.

But, will loving him be enough to erase all the hate in her heart for his father? Can she look at him, and not see the evil in his family tree?

And maybe it’s all a set up. Maybe Kyle is only pretending to care so he can finish what his father started, and kill her too.