Page 37 of Tempting Her Forbidden Boss

She flushed.

‘And, no, that impression hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s been enhanced.’ He gave her a playful pat on the rear. ‘Now hurry up and eat—we’ve got to go help Lorenzo.’

Dani was sorely tempted to slap him back, but she suspected she’d end up beneath him if she did that and her body needed a couple of hours’ recovery time first. ‘Help him with what?’

‘You’ll see.’

Ten minutes later Dani watched out of the window as they drove out of the inner-city flash-apartment zone, through a commercial area and eventually into a much poorer residential area. ‘How do you know each other?’

‘Lorenzo?’

‘Yeah.’ They seemed an odd mix. Alex was so the outgoing charming kind whereas Lorenzo was definitely the silent brooder.

‘We were at school together. Became friends there and have been ever since.’

So it was just the boys’ network thing. ‘And you set up the charity together?’

‘Lorenzo had the idea but didn’t want to be the public eye so much. He collared me for most of that. I wanted to support him.’

‘Why did he want to do it?’

Alex sent her a quick glance. ‘Lorenzo didn’t have a great upbringing. He wants to help kids in a similar position.’

How not so great an upbringing? ‘But you were at the same school?’ Somehow she imagined Alex had gone to some exclusive number that cost lots of money and she suspected that when he said Lorenzo’s upbringing hadn’t been so great, he meant it had been lacking—in every way.

‘Boarding school, yes. Lorenzo was a scholarship kid.’

‘Boarding?’ Dani lifted her brows. Alex was an only child whose parents had lived in the biggest city in New Zealand—there were posh private schools practically on their doorstep.

‘It was one of those boys’ own schools out in the country—lots of physical endurance stuff to keep us out of trouble.’

‘Don’t tell me you got into trouble, Alex,’ she teased.

His grin was twisted. ‘Why do you think my mother sent me there?’

She didn’t really believe him—this was Alex, the straight-up finance boss. But while he might be grinning, there was an edge of bitterness too—she wanted to ask more but he pulled the car to the kerb. ‘Here we are.’

Dani took in the scene—the tools, the wood, the sign on the building. They were building a new fence for a playgroup?

‘I’m happy to dig the last couple of holes for the side fence.’ Alex slammed the door.

Lorenzo looked up from where he stood in the back of the truck, tossing out implements. ‘You got energy to burn?’

‘And then some.’

Dani stepped out of the car. Okay, what was her role here?

‘You mind raking the leaves, Dani?’ Alex glanced over from where he was already picking up a spade.

‘Sure.’ She wasn’t work-shy. Good thing too because it took her over an hour to rake up all the leaves from the paths and heap them into the green waste wheelie bins. Then she swept and pulled a few weeds. By then she was burning to make a cutting comment or two because this wasn’t exactly her idea of Saturday-morning fun.

‘Where are the cameras?’ She stood alongside the fence line Alex was digging the post holes for. ‘Don’t you want your charity bit to be recorded for publicity?’

‘This is just a little job we’re doing on the quiet. We save the cameras for the big set pieces like the dinner the other night.’ Alex leaned on the spade and drawled, ‘When we’re looking our handsomest.’

Dani could argue that one. Sure, he was to die for in a tux, but in faded old jeans and a tee shirt that was now clinging to his sweaty torso, well, hell. Officially it might be autumn, but as far as she was concerned it was hotter than Hades.

He was obviously used to a bit of physical work—could handle a spade and a wheelbarrow. But she couldn’t sit here and watch him all day lugging wood and digging and looking way too manly. And it looked as if they were going to be doing thisallday. Lorenzo had put up the horizontals on the front fence—where the posts had already been concreted in.

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