Lauren, one of New York's best editors, devoted to a shame of a marriage with Dylan Hugh, incidentally stumbled upon the prologue of a book, and despite the fact that the book wasn't through the normal process by an agent, It quipped her interest and she fell in love with it. Lauren shared the prologue with her father, Danny Theo, the founder of Theo Press and he also shares her view and encourages her to find the golden author of the book.
This idea you conceived. It sure will be profitable to join in this venture.
Her husband cares less about her obsession with this book (prologue) and was more interested in being the owner of Theo press through devious means and uses her quest to search for the author of the piece as a romantic escapade with Jennifer. Dylan uses excuses and faked up meetings to fool Lauren.
With much enthusiasm, Marcus with the help of a detective is able to find the writer, Parker Evans in Saint Annes.
Lauren sees Parker Evans as cold and partly violent and short tempered. It surprises her that the author of Envy is on a wheelchair and he's helped around by a nice man called Mike. Parker's accident had been attributed to his inability to walk.
Meanwhile, back in New York, Dylan was making plans to sell Theo press to Mr Blumes who was introduced to him by his lover, Jennifer. Dylan, who was a cunning man, threatened the lawyer at Theo press, a friend of David Theo. The lawyer, Mr Howard later committed suicide.
When Lauren returns to New York, she finds out her husband has been lying to her and was cheating on her with Jennifer. She was so heartbroken because Noah never showed any remorse. She realised she was already falling in love with the infamous Parker Evans, infidelity was a push for her to go back to St Annes Island.
Parker, haunted by his past, later finds love in Lauren. Lauren doubts her unfailing faithfulness to Dylan after she slowly and finally realises the truth. By this time, Parker had started to write the full book. The book Envy written by Parker Evans is symbolic. Lauren realises the characters in Parker's book seem to exist and the main villain in the book was actually deceiving husband, Dylan. Back in New York, Danny called Jennifer and told her to put in her gossip magazine that he is giving Theo's press to his daughter Lauren. And so, Jennifer betrayed Dylan and married Mr.Blumes, exposing on her column that Theo's press now belongs to Lauren.
Lauren's father dies and she suspects her husband but the investigations hadn't pointed to him. She feels scared and tired even when she also became unfaithful to her husband after a brief sexual affair with Parker. She decides she wants a divorce.
I can't do this anymore.
Towards the end of the story, Mike shares his fear of Parker getting to exact his revenge on Dylan just like he had written in his book. Mike and Maris are scared of Parker committing murder; killing Dylan as a means of revenge for what Dylan had done for him in the past, for betraying his trust and nearly killing him because of envy.
Dylan was kicked out of Theo's press by the new company's lawyer, Mr. Sean because his devious plans were exposed.
In the end, Parker threw Dylan into a well and planned with the cops to act as if there was a fight which made Noah confess to his crime and was sent to jail. Parker and Lauren decided to give themselves a chance and they both started dating.