Glimmers of You

Caden Shaw was once the narrator's friend as well as her brother's. Then he left their small town at the moment she needed him most. Now he has come back, with a cocky smirk and a habit of giving her nicknames that irritate her, and she cannot manage to ignore him.

Her ex will not leave her alone. Caden offers a fix: if the two of them pretend to be deeply in love, the ex backs off, and so does Caden's father, a calculating man who is pressuring him too. She agrees to the plan.

The trouble is that her feelings for Caden are real, and they were real even during the years she believed she hated him. Each kiss makes the act harder to tell apart from the truth, and the pretence starts to feel like the genuine thing.

A third presence complicates it. Someone is watching the pair, resents the place Caden now holds in her life, and is willing to go to destructive lengths to separate them.

This is a small-town romance told in the first person by the heroine. It uses a fake relationship and a brother's-best-friend dynamic, with a threatening stalker thread running underneath the love story.