Page 51 of Going Deep
“Is it that big of a deal?” Lola asked. “After all, it’s not like you’re dating.”
Ginger narrowed her eyes at Lola’s guileless smile. “Well, aren’t you a sneaky bitch?”
Anna hooted out a laugh. “She really is.”
Lola’s smile spread. “Sometimes you two forget I can Dom with the best of ‘em.”
Ginger scowled. “No switch-hitting on girl’s night.”
“Seconded,” Anna said.
Lola rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
“Half a billion dollars,” Ginger muttered and took another swig of wine. “I can’t even picture that much money.”
“He doesn’t have that much personally,” Lola pointed out. “He draws a salary from the foundation, and he has an inheritance from his grandfather, so he’s not hurting, but?—”
“Hang on,” Anna interrupted. “How do you know that?”
Lola just raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, for God’s sake. You ran him?”
Lola smirked. “Of course, I did.”
“Ran him?” Ginger echoed.
“A background check.” Anna said and plunked the pot on the stovetop. “When?”
Lola shrugged. “When I was thinking about joining Odyssey.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Anna declared and turned to Ginger. “Do you have any peanut or coconut oil?”
Ginger was still staring at Lola. “You ran a background check on Michael?”
“Never mind, I’ll just look,” Anna said and began opening cupboards.
“It wasn’t like I had him under surveillance or anything,” Lola explained. “It was just a simple search of publicly available databases.”
Ginger slid onto a stool at the counter. “That’s fucking genius. I never thought of running a background check on a guy.”
“It’s not genius, it’s ridiculous,” Anna interjected, turning away from the cupboard with a tub of coconut oil in one hand. “Not to mention an invasion of privacy. How old is this?”
Ginger frowned at the tub. “I don’t know. It was here when I moved in.”
Anna opened it and stuck her nose in for a sniff. “It smells like coconut. It’s probably fine.”
“You don’t think running a background check on a guy is smart?” Ginger asked Anna.
“I think it can be.” Digging a spoon out of the drawer, Anna scooped up a lump of coconut oil and plopped it into the pan. “Someone you don’t know, or someone you’re suspicious of. But all Lola had to do was talk to Grant or Simon.”
Lola’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “I did talk to Grant. And as for Simon, we weren’t exactly getting along at that point.”
Ginger looked at Lola. “You weren’t?”
Anna flicked on the burner under the pot and picked up the jar of popcorn kernels. “They were still pretending they hated each other.”
“He was still pretending he hated me,” Lola corrected.
