My Ex’s Sister Asked Me to Be Her Fake Fiancé at a Family Wedding, but One Hotel Bed Turned the Lie Into Something Neither of Us Could Take Back

Sunlight was streaming through the sheer balcony curtains when I woke up.

For a disoriented second, I didn't know where I was. The smell of high-end hotel soap, sea salt, and faint vanilla filled my senses. Then my eyes adjusted to the carved wooden canopy above me, and the events of the previous evening came rushing back.

I turned my head.

The Great Wall of China had collapsed during the night.

Sometime around three in the morning, the pillows had been shoved aside. Brooke was curled up on my side of the bed, her face buried against my shoulder, one of her arms thrown possessively across my chest. Her dark blonde hair was tangled wildly across my collarbone, and every time she breathed, her warm breath brushed against my bare skin.

I stopped breathing entirely.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I looked down at her, taking in the soft curve of her cheek, the faint dark circles under her closed eyes that betrayed how exhausted she really was, and the way her hand rested flat over my heart.

For a guy who had spent years building walls and keeping people at a safe, predictable distance, having this chaotic, brilliant, infuriating woman sleeping against my chest felt terrifyingly natural.

Slowly, carefully, I raised my hand, wanting to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face.

Before my fingers could touch her, Brooke’s eyelids fluttered open.

Her blue-gray eyes locked onto mine. For three seconds, she didn't move. She just stared up at me, sleep-warm and disheveled, her gaze dropping briefly to my lips before snapping back to my eyes.

A slow, dangerous flush crept up her neck and dusted her cheeks.

"Good morning," I murmured, my voice raspy with sleep.

"Morning," she whispered back, her voice soft and breathless. She didn't move away. In fact, if anything, she pressed herself slightly closer against my side. "Did the wall fall?"

"The wall suffered a catastrophic structural failure around three o'clock."

"Hmm." She closed her eyes again, smiling faintly against my shoulder. "Bad engineering."

"I told you," I whispered, resting my chin lightly on the top of her head. "Should have used structural bracing."

Before either of us could ruin the moment with logic, a sharp, deafening *knock* echoed against the heavy wooden door of Suite 402.

We both froze.

"Brooke? Leo?" Eleanor Keller’s voice drifted through the wood, bright, cheerful, and terrifyingly close. "Are you two awake? We have a spa appointment at nine, and then the florist needs to run through the table arrangements with us!"

Brooke bolted upright as if she’d been struck by lightning, scrambling across the mattress and tangling herself in the duvet before tripping over a rogue silk rose petal on the floor.

"Coming, Mother!" Brooke yelled, her voice pitching an octave higher than normal as she frantically smoothed down her oversized sleep shirt. She shot me a wide-eyed, panicked look. "Get dressed! If she walks in here and sees us sleeping on opposite sides of a collapsed pillow fort, we are dead!"

I swung my legs off the other side of the bed, grabbing my jeans from the floor. "Relax. We’re officially engaged. Engaged couples are allowed to share a bed."

"Not *our* family!" Brooke hissed, darting into the bathroom and slamming the door shut just as the lock clicked.

I stood there in the middle of the room, buttoning my shirt while looking at the ruined pillow fortress scattered across the floor.