Page 12 of Vengefully Matched

“Shades of what?” Hart swallowed. “I wasn’t looking for anything special. Just some pens. I know you have the good ones in there.” She held up one of Agatha’s favorite Pilot G-2 07s.

That bitch. Still, her face was too sincere. Like a cat that had gotten into a saucer of cream, feline in the smile, too pleased for someone who had traded a pen for a preppy makeover. She tossed the pen down, crossing her arms. There was something else, and Agatha was going to make it her mission to find out what.

“And you wouldn’t dare permanently change my appearance. That wouldn’t be very presidential.” She sounded out the last word like a slap in the face, and not a reminder that Agatha had beaten her for this very job.

Agatha sighed. She’d find out what Hart was up to, she was sure. This sort of skulduggery had a way of coming out eventually. “Relax. It’s permanent in that it won’t come off for twenty-four hours. It’s not forever.” She crossed her arms. She was a nice person, but she had the security protocol in place for a reason. She wasn’t a pushover, and the councilwoman needed to know it. “But fuck around in my office again and find out if I’ll be so generous next time.”

Hart looked at her as though she were seeing her for the very first time, eyes widening, mouth dropping open just a quarter inch. Something about that sent sparks zipping down Agatha’s spine. It was hard not to look too much at those perfect lips, strangely colored so bright pink in a way that didn’t suit her colleague at all, yet also seemed absolutely tempting. Even if they looked much better stained crimson, or wine-colored.

Agatha shut her eyes tightly for a moment. What was wrong with her today, thinking about Priscilla Hart’s lips when the woman had obviously been plotting and pranking against her? She was depraved. And had not taken enough time for proper stress-reducing self-care.

Thinking about masturbation in close proximity to Hart did something to her that she did not want to admit. She refused to, even if those damned orchids were now blooming in an extremely suggestive manner.

“Damn, Agatha, I didn’t think you had it in you,” Hart said. Agatha flushed, thinking, for an absurd moment, that Hart could read her dirty mind, before remembering that this was about her threat.

Turning around, Agatha didn’t grace her with a response. She didn’t want Hart to see the edge of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. She went straight to her office to think about how a pretty girl had smiled at her, even if the smile was literally off color.

“Wait,” said Hart, and she was aware of the woman’s height suddenly behind her. Agatha was precisely five feet five inches, a fact that had always pleased her in its even distribution. But now, looking up at Priscilla Hart’s long lashes and smudged eyeliner, she could see how a bit more height could be a boon. On flat feet, Hart probably only had an inch on Agatha, but like this, in heels, she towered over her.

“Listen,” Hart began, and Agatha reminded herself not to look too hard at those pink lips. Five-foot-five meant that it would take 2.2 of Agatha to reach the twelve-foot ceilings. That was better. What were pretty women compared to the unfettered satisfaction of winning?

“What?”

Hart smiled wide. “I just want you to remember that whatever happens next, I am the best person to interface with the mundane mayor. I belong here. I worked for this job.”

“Fine, it’s noted,” grumbled Agatha, too polite, even in her gloating, to mention that she was president for a reason. And the crux of that reason was that, as strong as Hart’s work was as a councilwoman, she still ran hot and cold with the caprice of youth, and in a pinch, was likely to procrastinate a task if she deemed it unworthy of her immediate attention.

Agatha pushed her office door open, pausing for a moment to give Priscilla a disappointed look before walking through the doorway.

Exactly two things happened next: Agatha frowned as she felt the edges of her hair creep up and grow coarse against her neck. She patted at it, pulling it forward to find a crop of straw-like blond hair cut in a choppy bob. Looking down, she recoiled. Instead of her fitted suit jacket, she was wearing a horrible puffy pink dress and—oh goddess, the horrors, were those Birkenstocks?

“Oh good! It worked. You’re giving Weird Barbie,” Hart began, her smile impossibly smug, striding toward her to get a better look.

And then the sound of several sharp somethings whirred through the air as she slammed into the ground. Priscilla Hart had tackled her and pressed her against the floor, the sound of blades thudding loudly into the nearest wooden desk. Hart rolled her to the side, surprisingly gentle, gaze darting up and down Agatha, searching. Her hand rested on Agatha’s arm beneath the puffed sleeve.

She was surprised to find herself transfixed not by the flying swords or the ground against her body, but instead by Hart’s eyes. The scent of last night’s alcohol was overwhelming, but her eyes, brown rimmed by that Geralt of Rivia Witcher gold and flecked with little specks of it here and there, were frantic. Mesmerizing, even as she hauled herself off Agatha, who watched as Priscilla raised herself onto her knees and bent down to press a palm against Agatha’s shoulder. Her touch was gentle. Careful.

“Are you all right?”

Confusion and anger warred in Agatha. Surely Hart had been the one to set up the flying swords now lodged in the side of the desk mere feet away from them.

But Agatha was also dressed like a child’s plaything, and Hart was marked in pink lipstick and nail polish. They had each gone to a lot of trouble to bathe the other in pink, and Agatha thought she and Hart had an understanding. They competed, sometimes brutally, but they didn’t actually want to do bodily harm to each other. Right?

Agatha wanted to believe that Priscilla Hart had not just attempted to kill her, even if she did hate her. It would be strange to set up both a Weird Barbie hex and a deadly one. Why go through all the trouble of one if the other was in place? To shame her completely in death or injury? To pin her to the desk like a bug for examination in this awful outfit?

“I’m fine,” Agatha said finally. She was going to be sore tomorrow. That was the downfall of hitting thirty-seven; she still looked and felt twenty-five, except when injured, tired, undercaffeinated, or suffering from the extreme condition of waking up at the wrong angle. Then she was sore for days. Agatha frowned. Hart would probably walk away without so much as a bruise. “Was that part of your prank?”

“I would never engage in irresponsible swordplay.” Those too-captivating eyes widened as she rocked back, pink mouth pulling into a frown. “I only did the Weird Barbie. I swear.” Her eyebrows gathered, and she looked pained. Was that contrition? Agatha had never seen Priscilla Hart contrite, not even when the woman literally fled from her fiancée at her own wedding.

It did something to her. Something Agatha didn’t want to admit about a woman who had possibly rigged her office to stab her.

Sitting up, Agatha crossed her arms. “Explain.”

Hart stood up, reaching out a hand for her. Agatha half expected it to contain a joy buzzer, but she took it anyway, finding only cool, soft skin, and absolutely nothing vibrating. She let Hart guide her over to a comfortable chair and tried to ignore the look on the other woman’s face as she checked her over, again, as though looking for injury.

If she had rigged the flying rapiers, she was doing a great job of selling concern now.

“My Uncle Larry can vouch for me. I had a little bit too much to drink at dinner with him, and I did a very unprofessional thing and slept here.”