Be My Fake Valentine

By: Daisy Woods

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Maria Coletti has survived three Valentine's Balls as the town's favorite single florist, and she's done smiling through the pitying looks. This year, she's showing up with a date—even if she has to fake one.

Enter Chris Walker: charming corporate lawyer, commitment-phobe extraordinaire, and the man who accidentally set last year's office Valentine's party on fire (the less said about the flaming heart centerpiece, the better). When Maria's cousin suggests a mutually beneficial arrangement—Maria gets her plus-one, Chris gets to rehabilitate his reputation—it seems like the perfect plan.

No one needs to know it's all pretend.

But between delivering candy-grams to half the town, surviving her five overprotective brothers' "casual" interrogations (and her matchmaking Nonna's pointed questions), and the infamous spiked punch bowl incident at the Valentine's Ball, their fake relationship starts feeling dangerously real. Chris's smile lingers a little too long over rose arrangements. Maria's heart does things it shouldn't when he defends Coletti's Flowers to the town council. And that kiss at midnight? Definitely not in the script.

With the whole town watching—and her entire Italian family analyzing every glance—Maria has to decide: is she brave enough to turn their Valentine's charade into something real?

Sometimes love needs a little fake dating, a lot of roses, and one spectacularly disastrous punch bowl to get it right.