Aleksa Cloete (Sandra Prinsloo), a well-known Cape Town psychologist, has authored a bestseller, Love Doesn't Hurt, but despite her long and happy marriage to husband Ben (Marius Weyers), she has an entirely intellectual view of love. Their only child Christiaan (Roelof Storm) was forced, while growing up, to find much needed nurturing from his 'second mother', loyal housekeeper Fy Abrahams (Shaleen Surtie-Richards). When Aleksa agrees to take part in a reality-style documentary about her breakthrough therapeutic work with women who confuse pain with love, one of her patients, Tanya Basson (Hilda Cronje), agrees to be the case study. Ben suffers a debilitating heart attack and Tanya arrives at Aleksa's home with the news that she has killed her boyfriend during a heated row. Aleksa realises that she has misjudged the severity of Tanya's emotional state and, at the same time, Ben tells her that he has reached a life-changing decision about the destiny of his own life. As the story ...