Ali Hazelwood

A forbidden, secret affair proves that all's fair in love and science - from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood. 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.

From the bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

Not in Love

Sophia

Eli was no aesthete. He had no idea whether this woman was objectively, scientifically beautiful, or whether her face simply came together in a way that seemed to work perfectly for him. Either way, the result was the same.

Even in flats, her eyes were only a handful of inches below Eli’s—and, no use in denying it at this point, right on the verge of spectacular. He forced himself to look away.

Eli was entranced. Her servant. Spellbound. He considered begging her to let him touch her. To let him go down on her here in the hallway. He would go grocery shopping and make her dinner off a YouTube recipe of her choice. He’d wash her car, read her a book, sit here outside her door and just make sure she was safe and protected. They could hold hands all night. They could play Scrabble.

. Please, fucking do that. Do you want my number now, or . . . ?” He stared, waiting for an answer. And then his eyes softened.

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

“It’s unsettling when you do that,” I said softly.

He turned away, chest heaving. “I’m sorry.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I forget to look at other things, when you’re around.”

“Your damn mouth,” he murmured, “is the most obscenely lovely thing I’ve ever had the burden of seeing.”

“It’s disconcerting.” His breath was hot on my cheek. “But in the past seventy-two hours, I’ve found myself thinking over and over that we could fuck however you wanted. For however long you wanted. Wherever you wanted. I’d consent to any and all demands, and it’d be so good that you’d probably just ruin me for the rest of my life, and I’d just sit there, grateful.” He let out a laugh. “Rue. It’s humbling, how bad I want you.”

At which point, in the very hotel lobby where he’d first laid eyes on her, he had to face the truth: however out of control his attraction to Rue might be, she was coping with hers far better. And damn him if he wasn’t fucking envious.

“Then why are you being like this? Jesus, you’ve been in actual relationships and never lost your mind. What’s so different now?”

Tonight? Did you hear her voice? Did you see her expression when she first noticed me? Did you see her mouth?

He was her servant. Anything she wanted, Eli would do it. He had to slide his hands behind his back, trap them between himself and the wall, just to stop himself from touching and gripping and taking.

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