A Diamond for a Duke

How do you stop loving someone who can never be yours?

Jemmah Dament has been in love with Jules Montgomery since girlhood. Before Society thrust him into a title. Before her own family's decline pushed her to the edges of respectability. He has always been the one constant in her life—her truest friend, her quiet joy, the only person who has ever made her feel seen. She's kept her heart carefully hidden, content to remain by his side as nothing more than a companion. Because that's all she can ever be. Wanting more would be reckless. Hope would be ruinous.

Jules never intended to become the Duke of Dandridge, nor to carry the weight of a legacy that demands obedience over happiness. In a world where alliances are forged in drawing rooms and emotions are liabilities, Jemmah has been his rare refuge—a presence he's come to rely on more than he ever admitted. But when he begins to notice the shape of her smile differently and the sound of her voice more acutely, the quiet ache of longing pulls him toward the one woman he's been forbidden to want.

Society expects him to marry a woman of wealth and breeding. Jemmah has neither. Yet the bond between them shifts in ways neither of them can ignore. A shared glance. A touch held a heartbeat too long. Suddenly, the unspoken becomes unbearable—and the line between friendship and something far more profound fades.

Now Jules must decide whether to follow the future determined for him… or risk everything for the only woman who has ever truly known his heart.