Page 23 of Vengefully Matched

Priscilla blanched. She did not want to be locked up in a glass coffin and transported across the sea for interrogation in the International Council of Witchery police bureau.

“Thank you for getting me out of that.”

“You’re not mad?” Agatha looked relieved. “They won’t be so generous again. Even once they thought we were a thing, I still had to beg. A toe out of line and you will know what the inside of that Loculus feels like until they can interrogate you.”

“I’ve faked worse for less,” Priscilla said. “Lay it on me. What do we have to do?”

“Well, we investigate. We prove your innocence, and then we have a polite breakup. You help me with the human mayor, and I’ll help you with the Connie Witherspoon situation, and we get the town running smoothly while we figure out who’s actually behind this.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Besides not going to international jail?” Agatha’s eyes glinted, steely, and Priscilla remembered that this was a woman clever enough to best her. “You get a rehabilitated image. I’m nice. If I vouch for you, people will believe you’re good too. I’m sure you had a reason for breaking things off with Evelyn, but there are a lot of folks who don’t seem to think so.”

Agatha’s smile brought out just the smallest wrinkles around her eyes, and she continued. “People don’t leave their fiancées dramatically mid-wedding for no good reason, generally. You’re broody, but I don’t think you’re the sort to mess with someone’s heart. It’s awfully brave to go that far and still turn back.”

It was the first time anyone had ever called her brave for what she did, and that made her think. It would help to not be known as a vindictive heartbreaker.

“I have one condition,” Priscilla said. It was a nonnegotiable; otherwise she couldn’t stomach the idea of this.

“I have many, but go ahead.” Agatha raised an eyebrow.

“Can you dump me? We stay friends, but I can’t break up with two presidents in a row.”

“Absolutely,” said Agatha. “I’d be honored to break your heart. For pretend. About the other conditions.”

Priscilla shrugged. “I’m flexible.” She waggled her eyebrows. “As my girlfriend, you’d know that.”

Agatha covered her face with her hand. “Am I really doing this?” she muttered.

“Yep,” said Priscilla, checking her nails. She was pleased to find that her spell to keep the polish unchipped held up through explosive blasts. “You signed us up for this. Remember that. It was your idea.”

“Okay. We stick to an appropriate amount of physical contact in public. Cheek kisses if needed, hand-holding, hand grazes, nothing rated higher than PG.” Agatha clasped her hands, squeezing them together in a nervous tic Priscilla recognized from Council meetings.

“Fair enough,” said Priscilla. The other woman’s fingers were flat on the table now. Agatha did have nice hands, and the cuffs of her blazer looked soft enough to touch. She remembered how that skin had felt when she ran her fingers over Agatha’s for a moment as they lay there, muted by the aftershock of explosion.

“We’ll need to hammer out the details. A meet-cute, a reasonable series of low-profile dates.” Agatha pushed a blond tendril behind her ear as if this was perfectly normal.

Those fingers again.

When Agatha had checked her pulse with them earlier, Priscilla hadn’t let herself think about the touch. But now that she knew Agatha wasn’t off-limits, the memory shifted into something more. Something delicious, something she wanted to run her tongue over and taste, again and again, until she got a sense of the shape of it.

Priscilla cleared her throat.

“My place, this evening? Say, eight o’clock?”

Agatha stared. “Hart Manor?”

“That is where I live, yes.” Priscilla, arms crossed, couldn’t help but tighten her grip on her elbows. She told herself that it was to keep from snapping and not at the thought of bringing a pretty girl home for the first time in—well, for the first time since Evelyn.

“Sure.” Agatha flexed her fingers again, threading them together and squeezing until it looked like they strained. Her cheeks tinted ever so slightly pink, like she had almost managed to hide whatever embarrassment she felt at the invitation.

Something between them had shifted, but she could make this work. She could ignore the whispering kernel of longing in her stomach, and perform for a pretend relationship.

One didn’t get to be an expert prankster without a stellar ability to pretend.

By the end of the day, it was past time to move the hearse. Priscilla had left it at the tea shop longer than was socially acceptable, and Vickie had texted to ask if it was going to become a permanent fixture.

She skirted Main Street, slinking down a back road instead of walking past Hopelessly Teavoted. Vickie wasn’t above meddling in her life after the events of last fall, and Priscilla wasn’t ready to talk to her old friend again about the situation with Agatha, now that there was a situation, however fake, to admit.