Twenty-year-old Jenny Barrett is a bright and popular young woman with a great sense of humour, despite the problems caused by her unhappy alcoholic mother, who has started to bring home men to make money for booze. Working at a Southampton hotel, Jenny meets up with her old sweetheart Nick, and when she gets a job on the Queen Mary, Nick turns up there too. On board her head is turned by Tony Morrelli, the American boss of a gang of longshoremen, who flirts with her outrageously. What Jenny doesn't know is that Tony is mafia, and that her liaison with him could put her in real danger. Jenny has to find the strength to break the destructive ties with her mother and Tony before she can see where her true happiness lies.