What does it take to turn the ghost of a virtuous girl, who has never thought herself a woman, into a being in love with the world? Conversely, what force in life turns a cynical Italian male, who goes through women like glasses of wine, into the man he was meant to be? The Girl Left Behind in the Rich Italian's Garden finds Carolina Rossini adopted into a squabbling but loving Italian family in postwar Italy. She lives a vibrant, difficult life with the impoverished Rossini's who cherish her difficult daughter while she slaves at their crumbling hotel, doing good deeds at the orphanage (financed by The Rich Italian who flirts with her as he flirts with every woman).

At times Cara feels she is living the life of a stranger as she struggles in this disreputable hill town where brothels outnumber churches and schools, so much more challenging than the convent life she still craves. She has befriended The Rich Italian's melancholic daughter, Rosa, who improves while they work in her father's ancient Gardens said by the superstitious to have powers over the naive.

The Rich Italian is growing richer with ever more women chasing him. He moves money in the markets for his pharmaceutical companies seeking compounds to alleviate the sadness afflicting his family for generations.

Claudio dismisses a jealous mistress, impulsively giving Cara four box seat tickets to see the opera Turandot in Venice. The Rossini family attends where Cara learns Elizabeth's father, Ismael, now an international opera star, will perform.

Cara secretly attends, hoping to make contact, but is defeated by his screaming fans, she but one of them. She prays that she may learn to forgive Ismael, who changed the course of her life, taking every one of her dreams.

But forgiveness eludes her, despite eight years of good deeds. She seeks comfort from Rosa, her friend.

Claudio, alone, invites her in, then dinner, wine and kisses in the Floria Gardens, a place thought to have powers over the naive who work its soil as she has done so many times with Rosa. Physically attracted to Claudio, as is every woman in Northern Italy, she sees him as a remedy for the lost things in her life, not admitting that she might be putting her heart at risk.

This is the beginning of Cara's friendship with The Rich Italian, who tries to give the women in his life nothing less than their heart's desire. Cara might have to face the truth about love when he enables her to travel back in time to reclaim the lost things of her youth.

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