Flare

by Jessica Jude

CASSIAN
I’ve loved Vivienne Wilson for so long, I don’t remember what it feels like not to. Not that it matters.

She’s my best friend’s sister. She’s off-limits. And now, she’s engaged to marry a man who can give her everything I can’t. A title. A future. A life that makes sense on paper.

I’m only the estate manager’s son—temporarily running Belgrave Park while my father recovers—and doing my level best to survive the autumn without losing what’s left of my sanity.

So I do what I’ve always done.

I stay quiet.
I keep my distance and pretend it doesn’t carve out my heart to do it.
I’ll give her every last thing she needs.

Even if it kills me.

VIVIENNE
Getting married at Belgrave Park is supposed to be a dream. It’s everything my family has ever wanted for me—an impeccable match, a perfect wedding, a future that fits neatly into the world I was born into.

There’s just one problem.

Cassian Cordero is everywhere. In the stables. In the library. Across the dinner table, looking at me like I’m something he’s already lost.

He’s my brother’s best friend.
My first crush.
The only boy I’ve ever loved.

And the last man in the world to ever be mine.

Because no matter how close we get—how long his hand lingers, how quiet the world feels when it’s just us—he never crosses the line. Never says the things I’m desperate to hear. Never gives me a reason to believe this isn’t all in my head.

I said yes to a man I don’t love, because if Cassian wanted me, he would’ve chosen me by now.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 15, 2026

About the author

Jessica Jude writes emotionally-charged kissing (among other things) books about royals and the elite. Her aim in all of her stories is to make you fall in love with the characters and use up box after box of tissues. Her characters are strong and independent, who make plenty of morally gray decisions. She likes her women fierce and her men possessive.

Her favorite scenes to write are arguments. She's been known to stir up drama in her own life when she gets bored, and her family is glad she has an outlet for her occasional Blair-Waldorfism. She lives in a big old house in the midwestern United States with her high-school sweetheart. She has dreamed of being an author since she was six and wrote her first book about a girl named Mary who got lost in the woods. Mary was eventually found, but sadly, the book was never published. Jessica is a homebody who loves to travel, a coffee candle junkie who doesn't drink coffee, and a very-loud-at-home introvert.

Find tropes and trigger warnings for her books at https://www.jessicajude.com/

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