“Oh, god…”

Bright sunlight crept into the room through the curtains, blazing through my eyelids and rudely yanking me out of my slumber. Since when was the sun this hot?

I opened my eyes, though I was barely able to manage the minor action. I felt like someone had just scraped me off the bottom of their shoe. My mouth was dry as cotton, my brain was scrambled eggs, and pain and nausea were hurtling through my system like a bullet train from hell.

I winced and looked down at myself. I was sprawled on a bed in nothing but my birthday suit. Notice I said a bed. Not my bed.

Where the hell was I?

I sat up straight and gathered the white bedsheets around my chest, my heart pounding as I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t hallucinating. This definitely wasn’t my cramped bedroom in my cozy San Diego townhouse. It was far more spacious with a minimalistic yet expensive interior design. Nice, but not really my style.

With a groan, I closed my eyes again, trying to piece together the hazy puzzle that was my existence at the moment. A few fragments returned to me as my obviously-hungover brain went into overdrive. That’s right, I was on Saint Clare Island for my sister’s upcoming wedding. This was my hotel room. But that didn’t explain why I felt so awful.

So what on earth happened last night? Surely I didn’t drink too much. I was usually quite responsible in regard to that, and I couldn’t even remember the last time I drank to excess. After all, hangovers seemed to quadruple in their severity after the age of twenty-three. I was already five years beyond that.

I looked to my right, trying to ignore the dizziness. A red dress and matching panties lay strewn on the floor, and a bra was hooked haphazardly over a bedside lamp. Apparently I’d undressed rather adventurously last night. Or someone else undressed me…

My stomach did a somersault, and I slid my gaze away from the offending clothes. Then I looked over to my left as my peripheral vision picked up on a suspicious mound in the bed. An arm stuck out of the sheets, attached to a bare and well-muscled back. The man was lying face-down, head buried in the white pillow, but I recognized the shock of unruly dark hair immediately.

Oh. My. God.

My heart leapt into my throat and I stifled a gasp as I realized who I’d shared this bed with.

Nate Scott.

A tiny thrill shot through my system as I tried to recall what I’d done. What we’d done. A muddled selection of memories eventually materialized in my foggy mind. Last night, I’d touched the tanned arm which was now peeking out from under the sheets. I’d stroked my fingers over it, ever so slowly. Sensually. I’d let Nate slide it around me as I lay my head back on the pillow and closed my eyes last night.

Another older memory filtered back to me, this one far less thrilling. I frowned, chiding myself for being even remotely excited at the prospect of sleeping with Nate, if that’s what I’d even done. It certainly looked like it, but perhaps I’d been wise enough in last night’s hammered state to stop it from happening. Perhaps we’d just slept in the same bed in a platonic manner. Naked.

Yeah, that made sense. Totally.

Quiet as a mouse, I peeled the sheets back and stepped out of the bed, reaching toward a nearby chair. I didn’t recall putting it there, but there was a white hotel robe draped over the back of it. As I wrapped the soft fabric around my nakedness, I spied something else draped over the chair. A deep part of me filled with sudden, inexplicable dread, and I tiptoed closer, my heart sinking more and more with each step. Surely this wasn’t what I thought it was. It couldn’t be.

A quick onceover told me it was indeed exactly what I feared—a white satin sash with the word ‘Bride’ emblazoned on it in black calligraphy. Another sash lay underneath, a ‘Groom’ counterpart to the first. Oh, no. My stomach soured and my head began to pound as if my skull was a drum in a thrash metal band.

This was literally the hangover from hell.

I turned around and crept back over to the left side of the bed, still moving on my tiptoes. I didn’t want to wake Nate. Not yet. I wanted to figure out what on earth we actually did first, without it being colored by whatever he had to say. He wasn’t exactly what I’d refer to as the most reliable source of information.

My first order of business was to collect my dress and underwear to see if they held any clues as to what exactly happened last night. Before I could pick them up off the floor, I spied something else that could provide an answer to my question. Everything in my mind seemed to come to a screeching halt as my gaze—and my limbs—froze on the spot.

Finally, I picked up my feet and stepped closer. A collection of Polaroid photos lay scattered on the white bedside table, featuring yours truly wrapped around Nate as we stood outside a little island chapel—a chapel which was famous (or infamous, depending on how you chose to look at it) for its quickie weddings.

In the photos, I was clad in the same red dress which now lay discarded on the floor in an incriminating heap. The ‘Bride’ sash hung loosely around my chest. A long gauze veil was attached to my mousy brown hair in a lopsided manner, further sealing my fate. My eyes were bleary, but my face-splitting grin told another story.

I was blissfully happy. And drunk, apparently.

I scrutinized Nate in the photos as I shakily leafed through them. He looked cheerful as well, though he also looked decidedly less intoxicated. Did that mean this had been his idea? If so, why? And how could I have been so irresponsible as to let it all happen?

This was a nightmare. A catastrophe. A disaster of epic proportions.

My eyes flickered over to the living, breathing Nate in my bed, and I glared at him as he snored gently. At some point in the last minute or so, he’d moved onto his side, kicking off some of the sheets and revealing more of his perfect, tanned body. Even in his sleep he seemed to flex his muscles like an Instagram bodybuilder. No surprises there.

I tore my gaze from his body and returned it to the photos, squinting at them in the hopes they’d magically disintegrate under my glare, exposing all of this as nothing more than a bad dream.

“Morning, Georgie.”

My stomach lurched and my head jerked to the right. Nate was awake now, propped up on one elbow in the bed as if my laser-like gaze from a moment ago had snapped him right out of his slumber. A lazy grin stretched across his lips. Those gorgeous lips.

Stop it.

I fixed him with a deadly serious glare. “What happened last night?”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

“Clearly, or I wouldn’t be asking you.”

He pushed the covers off himself and stood up, revealing everything that had lain beneath the sheets and next to me all night. Mercifully, he wasn’t completely naked. A pair of black boxer briefs covered his private parts. The rest of him was on full display. The mere sight of him stole the air from my lungs, and heat twirled inside me, making me tingle as my eyes skated over his chiseled abs and chest.

I ignored the tingling. I didn’t want this man. Not considering what I knew about him.

Not under any circumstances.

“What the hell happened?” I repeated, holding up one of the Polaroids as if it were a mugshot. If I told you I wasn’t quivering with nerves as I spoke, I’d be lying.

Nate grinned and stepped around the bed, inching closer to me. “What does it look like, wifey?”

Adrenaline flooded my body, and I let out a pitiful whimper. So it was true. I’d made the dumbest decision in the history of mankind last night.

I went out.

I got wasted.

And I married my fake boyfriend.