Page 37 of Vengefully Matched

“You absolute bitch,” Agatha bit off.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” She stared. “If you need something from me, just ask. Don’t go around hurling hurtful accusations.”

“I did hear you, but goddess, I can’t believe that your response to me being mad about you disrespecting our fake relationship is to hurl names.”

“That,” said Agatha, slamming a hand on the desk, “is not why I’m angry.”

Priscilla threw herself down in the chair in front of the desk, clutching the armrests to stop herself from snapping anything truly unforgivable.

“Pray tell, then, honey, why are you so mad?”

“Because you’re putting me in a reductive box and being a huge bitch about it.” Agatha glowered.

“You’re flirting with your assistant.”

“I’m sorry that it hurt your feelings, but I fail to see how thanking him for a compliment is flirting. And if you want something from a person in a relationship, you know, you have to actually say so. Just say, ‘Hey, Agatha, that made me feel bad.’ If I knew something would make you feel bad, I wouldn’t do it.”

“Fine, he was flirting with you,” Priscilla conceded.

“Yes, and? What would you have me do? Be cruel to the best assistant on the East Coast? Possibly in all of North America?”

“A little, yes. I quite like cruelty.”

“And I like that about you, because it’s your way. My way is politeness. Courtesy. I am in this thing, Priscilla, with you in what you need even for a fake relationship, but I get to stay who I am. And you don’t need to act like I’m some sort of a slutty bisexual stereotype because I’m not a gold star or something.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” And she hadn’t, but wasn’t it true that people could say a thing one way, and have someone else take it another way?

She hated this. Absolutely hated this. This was why she was better off alone.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like I thought you weren’t a good bisexual.”

“You first suggested I was taking advantage of my assistant and then told me you thought my bedroom would be boring? So, which is it? Am I too slutty for you, or not slutty enough? Good grief, I expect this sort of shit from mundanes from time to time. From bad boyfriends in the past, but not from you.”

Priscilla swallowed. She hadn’t thought of any of that, not at all, only that she was humiliated and unreasonably angry to hear Agatha laugh and talk sweetly to Kevin.

“I’m sorry,” she said, softer this time. Agatha sighed and walked to the chair, putting her hands on top of Priscilla’s and leaning down. “This was about me being jealous and reacting badly,” Priscilla admitted.

“If you’re serious about helping me catch our rogue arsonist, about restoring your reputation and building mine, you need to treat me like a serious partner. Not some throwaway rebound.” She paused at the look Priscilla felt on her face, the stricken agony. “I’m not saying you threw her away, but you treated our last president in a way that at least appeared disposable.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Priscilla was entirely prepared for people to suggest that she was a huge cunt for leaving Evelyn on their wedding day. She was not prepared for anyone outside of her immediate family to assume that part of that was optics.

Agatha leaned close to her face, staring into her eyes, and Priscilla held back a shudder. Antichrist, did those eyes have to be quite so blue?

“Just that people don’t typically run away from someone they clearly love deeply for no reason whatsoever. Jonathan didn’t humiliate me in public after you left for no reason, though I admit his reasons were despicable. I don’t want to assume yours are too. You know what they say about people who assume things.”

Priscilla was shocked. She wanted to deflect, as she always did when the subject of her failed nuptials arose. To change the subject and refuse to discuss it further.

For some unfathomable reason, though, she found herself offering a scrap of truth.

“We had irreconcilable differences. I know we should have talked them out before that. And we did. We spent so much time talking in circles, both of us hoping that loving each other would be enough. But it’s not always enough, Agatha, it just isn’t. Maybe you know that, from whatever it was you were doing before this.”

Agatha blinked, leaning back and shaking her head.

“Jonathan and I never loved each other,” she said softly. “Not really. But if you wanted to talk about what happened with Evelyn, I’d listen.”

She sat in her chair, propping her head in her hands, a safe distance away now, but her eyes no less piercing.