I will admit, I was drawn to this one by the cover. It’s not one of those “oh this is a cutesy cover, but we’re going to hit you in the face with a side of spice,” but definitely brought the spice and story for me.
Here’s more about Not in Love
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.
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My thoughts
This is the story of Rue and Eli. Rue is a biotech engineer at Kline and Eli is one of the business partners trying to buy Kline from its current owner. So you can say there’s a definitely conflict of interest here. When Eli and Rue see each other in the board room as changes to Kline’s business are announced, they both realize that that moment was not the first time they’ve seen each other. In fact, the night before they had matched on a dating app and nearly went to bed with each other. So of course, the embarrassing moment of knowing that they were about to sleep with each other and the fact that their work lives are about to collide make for the perfect enemies-to-lovers romances.
For me, this book redefines enemies-to-lovers for me and makes me wonder what hate sex might be like. Because Rue and Eli can’t control their attraction for each other despite knowing that they’re natural enemies. So of course they try to get it out of their system only to share their deepest secrets with each other and fall a little harder than they imagined.
When it comes to spicy food, the hotter the better. When it comes to spicy books, I’m a huge wimp. And honestly, I thought this book was super spicy and almost heading towards territory I rarely go when it comes to romance, but my friend also read this book and said it wasn’t all that bad. And she was right. While the open-door scenes were pretty spicy, they weren’t so hot that my face was flush in the middle of the grocery store.
I think my favorite part of this book was the corporate takeover. Yes, I’m a business nerd and seeing Eli make some incredible sacrifices for Rue just made me root for them even more. I know that both of them have their own baggage when it comes to relationships and family, but it was obvious with their interactions that they were willing to make something work even if it was just hot sex every once in a while.
I think the only thing I didn’t like were the too coincidental moment at the ice rink. I liked when they saw each other in the conference room at Kline that second day after their failed date, but then to also have them connected through ice skating just felt like too much. There’s already that connection, so adding another layer of connection felt like squeeze in there for no reason. You do learn a little bit more about Rue and Eli’s life through this shared connection, but it didn’t have to literally be the same rink with the same people. It felt too forced.
Other than that, this was such an entertaining and fun story. I loved the intrigue with the corporate takeover, the commitment issues, and deep character development taking place with everyone.
Simone and Her Books 
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