Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Alisha Eadle
Jun 30
9 min read

Not in Love

by Ali Hazelwood

Published by Berkley

Book 1 in the Not in Love Duology

Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science.

Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.

Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through - and he's a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can't stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.

Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business - one that plays for keeps.

Genre

#ContemporaryRomance

#InterconnectedRomance

Triggers

Memories of child abuse/neglect, food insecurity

I read somewhere that Not in Love was Ali's least favored work to date, because it's a little different from her other romances.

If that is true, I don't know why.

It's a little darker.

But it's such a great book!

And still feels very much like an Ali Hazelwood book.

All the science-y stuff is there.

The characters have just a bit more trauma.

I honestly don't know why it took me so long to read this. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for almost a year.

Overall, the story was interesting. It had a touch of enemies to lovers to it, because of the circumstances of they find themselves in, but the chemistry between the characters quickly changes that. It felt like genuine attraction from the time they meet to when things ... finally come together.

The story beyond them was interesting as well, and I found myself quickly immersed into the dynamics of these characters, and their friends.

In a way, I'm glad I waited so long to read Not in Love, so I don't have to wait too long for the second book in the duology, Problematic Summer Romance.

The romance was so much fun to read. The tension between Eli and Rue was great, the banter was entertaining, and anytime they were together on page, it was sexy.

Not in Love was sexy as hell.

I'm not sure why there are people who didn't like this book. Yeah, it's a little darker than Ali's other books, but it still had everything that made Ali's work so popular. Honestly, if you are like me, and held off on reading this book, pick it up. It's a touch different, but still full of Ali Hazelwood's magic.

Nyota: "As I was going to explain, private equities are ... groups of people with lots and lots of money and spare time. And instead of frolicking in their hard-earned cash Scrooge McDuck-style, or leaving it in savings accounts like the two of you -"

Tisha: "Bold of you to assume I have savings,"

Tisha muttered.

Rue: "Thank you, but I'll have to pass. The potential for situational irony is a bit too high, even for me."

Eli: "I don't think this qualifies as situational irony."

Rue: "It would if you turned out to be a serial killer."

Smiling wasn't going to win him any points, but he couldn't help himself.

Eli: "You were going to go upstairs to a hotel room booked under my name and spend hours alone with me."

Rue: "Hours?"

The way he was feeling at the moment, more than that.

Eli: "Hours."

She held his gaze for every letter.

Eli: "Seems late in the game to worry about whether I'll murder you."

Rue: "A friend knew where I'd be and how to check on me. A second location is a whole different beast."

Eli: "Is it?"

He had no business being this pleased by her self-preservation.

Rue: "Vincent's a dick. But for all I know, you're the Unabomber."

Vincent. She knew the dickhead's name - and Eli still didn't know hers. Fucking irritating.

Eli: "Unabomber's dead."

Rue: "That's what the Unabomber would say to throw me off,"

she deadpanned, unknowable. He couldn't tell whether she was flirting, making fun of him, or dead serious.

It was exhilarating.

Eli: "He made bombs and solved math theorems. HE didn't kidnap young women."

Rue: "You know a lot about the Unabomber for someone who supposedly isn't him."

Rue: "Eli Killgore,"

she read.

Rue: "That is not a reassuring name, Eli."

He frowned.

Eli: "It's Scottish."

Rue: "It sounds like the name of someone who trims girls' pubes and sews them into dolls. You look younger than thirty-four. And are you really that tall?"

He sighed heavily, and she returned his license, straight faced.

Rue: "So we've established that your last name is closely related to the term 'blood splatter'. But I still don't know that this isn't a fake ID you made to lure women into your moth-decorated lair."

Rue: "I didn't peg you for a hybrid kind of guy."

He snorted and started the engine.

Eli: "Don't say what you did peg me for."

Rue: "A mustang, maybe."

Eli: "Jesus."

He wiped a hand over his face.

Rue: "Or a Tesla."

Eli: "Get the fuck out. You're walking home."

Jay: "Sorry, it's that fucking piece of shit. Matt decided in the middle of the night that it would be fun to kill me and fuck my corpse, so he asked for that allergen report before nine today. I was trying to finish it, didn't manage to, and now that whoreson is going to -"

Jay noticed Eli and shut his mouth so energetically, his teeth clinked. The entire spectrum of human emotions passed on his face - surprise, shame, resignation, guilt, anger, and, eventually, defiance.

Jay: "He is a whoreson. I stand by what I said."

Eli: "How much would you like to not have your corpse defiled, Jay?"

Jay: "Um. A normal amount?"

Rue: "Are you really going to play golf with him?"

Eli: "Probably. Unless the Virgin Mary appears to Florence in a fever dream and orders her to turn over the documents we need."

Rue: "I believe she's an atheist."

Eli: "Golf it is, then."

The breeze picked up between us, and he kept looking, looking, looking.

Looking.

Rue: "It's unsettling when you do that,"

I said softly.

He turned away, chest heaving.

Eli: "I'm sorry."

His Adam's apple moved.

Eli: "I forget to look at other things, when you're around."

Tisha: "Did you lock yourself in your office? Were you like, masturbating over spandex porn?"

Rue: "I'm just sick of people dropping by."

Tisha: "Do that many people drop by? I thought your nicely frosty personality was enough of a deterrent."

Rue: "I must be slipping."

Tisha: "Don't worry, I still get 'would not save ninety-nine percent of humanity in case of apocalypse' vibes from you."

Rue: "Phew."

Eli: "Rue."

Eli clucked his tongue, patient, inching even closer. His lips pressed against me - corner of couth, cheek, ear. He spoke in a low whisper.

Eli: "Fair warning: if you don't stop pushing me, I'm going to bend you over this bench and show you exactly what I'm into."

Tisha: "Anyway, it's nice to finally make you acquaintance, Eli Killgore, Texas resident, born on June twenty-first -"

Eli: "I wondered who she'd sent that pic to."

Tisha: "It was moi. Tisha."

She pointed to herself with a flourish.

Tisha: "T-I-S-H-A, if you want to add my contact to your phone. I added yours, just in case someone finds Rue's body in a ditch."

Tisha: "Boy, if Florence finds out, she's not gonna like this."

Tisha ran a hand down her straight hair.

Tisha: "How long ago was it? The consummation of your lust, I mean."

Eli: Two and a half weeks."

Not that he'd been counting.

Tisha: "Sounds like the title of an erotic thriller."

Eli: "I live nearby,"

he said. A gambit.

Eli: "You could come over. Retrieve your property."

Rue: "My property?"

Eli: "You left something in that hotel room."

He watched her scan her memories, and her eyes widened when she stumbled upon the answer.

Rue: "You could have thrown them away."

Eli: "The thought never occurred to me."

Rue: "They're not your size, you know."

Eli: "They definitely worked when I used them."

He was being deliberately crude, maybe to remind himself of what lay underneath this distance between them. Maybe to remind her.

Rue: "You can't have Kline, so you stole my underwear."

Eli: "Oh, Rue. I can have Kline."

Her eyes narrowed, and he continued,

Eli: "I just wanted a keepsake. If you don't want them back, you can leave them with me - it's a good home. But come over anyway. For fun."

Rue: "Do we need a safe word, or something?"

Eli: "Why don't we just ... communicate, for now? I tell you what I'd like you to do, what I would like to do, and you can tell me no, or ask me to stop, Does that sound good?"

Rue: "It sounds better than screaming 'broccoli' because you're pulling my hair too hard."

Rue: "I can't come? Ever?"

Eli: "Not until I tell you. It doesn't matter how close you are, you wait for my permission. Okay?"

Rue: "Doesn't sound too hard. Not having orgasms with a man is something in which I have plenty of experience."

Eli: "Let me go make this fucking risotto you dickheads ruined my Saturday for."

Minami: "Gotta love a warm welcome,"

Minami said, before chatting Rue up.

Eli: "What does it look like I'm doing?"

Hark: "It looks like if you stared at that girl any longer you'd have jizz coming out of your eyeballs."

Eli: "Woman. And: classy."

Minami: "Is it ready yet?"

Minami asked, popping by the kitchen.

Minami: "Sul's starving. I saw him lustily eyeing Tiny and had to distract him with saltines."

Eli: "In three minutes. Thanks for saving my dog."

Minami: "I consider myself more Tiny's friend. You're incidental."

He was absolutely charmed by her inability to interact with his dog. He pictured her waking up in the morning, making her way outside to walk Tiny, politely but assertively asking him not to eat other dogs' shit. When she lifted a hand, as though considering a tentative pat on Tiny's head, Eli almost held his breath. She gave up after a few moments of nervous hovering, and Tiny looked absolutely crestfallen.

Me, too, buddy, Eli thought. Me, too.

Eli: "Hark and Minami dated for a couple of years. She broke it off. Hark never got over it. She married Sul."

Rue: "Fascinating."

Eli: "Is it?"

He gave me a pained look.

Rue: "Not as much as The Hunger Games, but yes. Sul seems ... quiet."

Eli: "He talks even less than you do."

Rue: "I talk."

Eli: "Hmm. Sure. Then my damn sister developed a very age-inappropriate crush on Hark, and the triangle became a square. I might just hate all of them."

Rue: "You are clearly the real victim of the situation."

Eli: "So glad that came across."

Eli: "Part of me wants to feel offended. That you won't skate with me for five minutes, but are okay with being fucking in the middle of a parking lot."

Rue: "And the other part?"

Eyes fixed on mine, he opened the passenger door.

Eli: "Get inside."

Eli: "Whenever you want to feel like this,"

he murmured at the inside of her thigh,

Eli: "call me. Use me."

Her heels dug into his back like little fists.

Eli: "I think about doing it every second of every day anyway."

Eli: "So I did cure you with the unique prowess of my magic cock."

Rue: "You have healed me. My appendix scar has disappeared. I'm not allergic to pollen anymore."

Rue: "You know, I think the sex is a big part of the problems between us."

Eli: "The sex?"