23-year-old Diana Sommer has had to abandon her dream of becoming a championship ice skater and face the real world, working as an inline-skate courier and living with her mom and stepfather in the working-class part of town.
That doesn't keep her from sneaking into the ice rink of the Steinkamp sports company after work to secretly practice her figure-eights. There she is observed by Julian, the marketing head of the company, who immediately spots her talent and drafts her into the company skating team.
Diana is taken with charming, handsome Julian right away, and quickly finds an enemy in his current girlfriend, wealthy and pampered ice queen Jenny Steinkamp, heir to the family sporting goods empire, sponsored by Daddy. Jenny's parents Richard and Simone will stop at nothing to ensure their number one daughter, and their company, make it to the very top. Number two daughter, pudgy Vanessa, often finds herself standing in the shadows, becoming something of the rebel of the dynasty. She takes refuge with her illegitimate half-brother Ben, product of Richard Steinkamp's fling with choreographer Nadja. Vanessa's secret flame is Tim, Julian's punk guitarist brother who got kicked out of boarding school and now lives with his corporate older brother. Vanessa's nemesis is Diana's step-sister Nina, whose father Dieter married Diana's struggling mom when she became a widow, and treats her like hired help, just as Nina does. A constellation for complicated choreographies, on and off the ice...