Under The Stars: A Sweet Small Town Fake Relationship Romance

When Stella Blackwood's flood-damaged flower shop becomes the least of her problems, she knows her week has officially gone from bad to catastrophic. Her manipulative ex-husband James has returned to Mountain Ridge with his much-younger fiancée, demanding Stella provide the flowers for their wedding-the ultimate humiliation wrapped in white silk and baby's breath.
Enter Marcus Rivera, the enigmatic ex-Marine who owns the local gym and lives like a hermit in his mountain cabin. Broad-shouldered, quietly intense, and carrying secrets of his own, Marcus has been watching Stella from afar, admiring her strength and grace. When he walks into her flower shop by pure accident, he finds a woman on the verge of breaking-and offers her a deal that could save them both.
The proposition is elegantly simple: fake boyfriend services in exchange for business partnership credibility. Stella gets someone formidable to stand beside her when facing down her past; Marcus gets someone to help him look like stable relationship material for the resort deal that could save his struggling business. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement with clear boundaries and realistic expectations.
The Emberline Passion Books brings you captivating, feel-good romances with all the passion and none of the wait. These are stories you can dive into anytime, anywhere - quick to read, impossible to put down, and guaranteed to leave you smiling long after the last page.
But Mountain Ridge is a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, and pretending to be madly in love proves more challenging than either expected-especially when their fake relationship starts feeling dangerously, irresistibly real. Between stolen kisses that aren't for show, midnight conversations that reveal wounded hearts, and the growing realization that they fit together perfectly, Stella and Marcus find themselves in deeper than either bargained for.
When James threatens to expose their arrangement and destroy everything they've built, they must decide: are they brave enough to fight for something that started as the biggest lie but might just become the most important truth of their lives?
A sweeping small-town romance about second chances, healing hearts, and the courage to love again.