This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Alix Nichols will be awarding a digital box set of her bestselling series The Darcy Brothers to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

One of the questions that stayed with me long after I finished writing A Duchess with a Secret is this: Does protecting someone you love justify hiding the truth?

It’s a question Eva, the heroine of my novel, has been forced to confront in the most painful way. For years, she has lived with secrets — some forced upon her, others she chose to keep in order to shield the people she loves.
Now she finds herself standing at a crossroads where the “right” choice could hurt the very person she’s trying to protect.

Eva has spent much of her life enduring, first from her parents, then from her husband. She knows better than most how silence can feel like safety… and how it can also become its own kind of prison. But when the truth she carries has the power to change everything for her daughter, the lines between protection and deception become dangerously blurred.

At the same time, Alex is facing truths of his own — about his family, his inheritance, and the man he thought he was.

Their stories collide in a place where love doesn’t simplify moral choices or make the path clearer. It just makes the stakes higher.

Eva must decide what she’s willing to sacrifice. When her darkest, most dangerous secret becomes too heavy to carry alone, she’s forced to make an impossible choice.

If you’ve ever wrestled with a similar dilemma, I think you’ll understand Eva’s struggle. And if you want to find out what she ultimately chooses, and whether her whirlwind romance with Alex can survive that choice, I hope you’ll pick up A Duchess with a Secret!

For sixteen years, they’ve hated each other…
and craved each other.

Widowed and betrayed, Eva Castellane will do anything to protect her daughter’s inheritance.
Standing in her way?
Alex Castellane—her late husband’s steely, magnetic half brother.
The man poised to take it all.
Her worst enemy.
Her forbidden temptation.

Stuck together in the family castle, their legal fight spirals into war…
until a common threat forces a reluctant alliance.
Desire blurs the lines.
Chemistry sizzles.
Rules get broken.

But as the verdict nears, one slip could unravel Eva’s explosive secret…

A Duchess with a Secret stands alone within the Montevor Royals Saga. It is a spicy contemporary enemies-to-lovers romance with forced proximity, family secrets, and a hard-won HEA.

Enjoy an Excerpt

“He’s here,” Millie whispers.

I don’t look. I don’t need to.

The man she’s warning me about radiates a chill so palpable I can sense which door he entered through. The air in Fort Vauclairt’s reception hall, warmed by hundreds of flickering candles and the breath of mourners grows colder by the second.

Of course, Alex would show up! Nothing like a funeral to size up how much of the estate he can have, just because he happens to share the same father as Geoffroy.

I’m being unfair, I know.

After all, Alex is the old duke’s second son. In neighboring France, the math prodigy would’ve inherited half of the duchy when Rodolphe passed.

Then again, there are no dukes or duchies in the Republic of France, nor are we subject to its laws. We’re old school in Mount Evor. Here, the principles of primogeniture and representation still reign supreme. The firstborn takes it all. The child comes before the sibling. With both Geoffroy and Julian gone, Millie’s birthright ensures that she inherits everything.

The only way Alex Castellane gets a chunk of the estate is if Geoffroy named him in his will. Which I know he didn’t. My late husband and his younger half brother had been estranged long before I met and married Geoffroy Castellane, a dashing widower twice my age.

Alex will get nothing or next to nothing. And Millie will be the next Duchess of Rohinn.

He knows this, of course he does. Yet he carries his tall, infuriatingly well-proportioned form with confidence, which lends an air of legitimacy to his potential claims.

About the Author Alix Nichols is a caffeine addict, a longtime fan of Mr. Darcy. She pens sexy romantic comedies and romantasy. Her books have been described as “pure pleasure” (Kirkus Reviews) that “keep fans of romance hanging off the edge of their seat” (Romantic Times).

At the age of six, she released her first book. It featured highly creative spelling on a dozen pages stitched together and bound in velvet paper.

Decades later, she lives in France and still writes. Her spelling has improved (somewhat), she has become a Kindle Scout winner, Chanticleer First Place winner, USA Today bestseller, Book Riot’s Top 100 Must-Read International Romance author, and Amazon All-Star for being one of the 100 most-read authors in Kindle Unlimited.