She stole a suitcase full of cash—and secrets—from a king of the Las Vegas underworld.
Then she stole his heart.
It was too tempting to pass up.
A suitcase full of cash. A new identity already burning a hole in my wallet.
So I did it. I took the money and ran.
I had no idea the money belonged to a king of the Las Vegas underworld.
And I definitely wasn’t prepared for what he would do to … underworld.
And I definitely wasn’t prepared for what he would do to get it back.
***
I knew I shouldn’t have let a drug addict ex-grunt pick up that suitcase, even if he was my best friend.
I should never have agreed to be the one to get the suitcase back.
Then I wouldn’t have met Izzy Lake and fallen for her bad fake accent, her beauty, and her raw vulnerability.
If I don’t get that suitcase back in eight days, I’ll be spending the rest of my life behind bars.
I need that suitcase. But I need her more.
more
Isabel is down on her luck, but that changes when her client dies and she finds over a million dollars in his suitcase! King needs that suitcase and is on a mission to find Isabel and get close to her. But what will happen when they begin to have feelings for each other? A suspenseful and sizzling romance, with unforgettable characters who have undeniable chemistry! A fun and romantic story of two people brought together by fate!
This story is one hell of a roller coaster ride. I loved every minute of it right from page one till the end and that ending was killer. I love a good romance suspense book and that is what you have here because Izzy finds herself in quite the predicament when she is in Las Vegas and goes on the run.
See Izzy is down on her luck and has to become a prostitute to survive. So she works at this brothel when she has this customer who comes in and suddenly dies. She sees he has a suitcase with him and in it is a large sum of money and so she decides to take the suitcase and run and change her life. So she runs to a small town in North Carolina where she buys a house and lays low. But she keeps having this feeling that she is being watched so she is looking out everywhere to see who is watching her but she can’t seem to find the person.
King is going crazy because he knew he should have never let his friend get the suitcase. But he did and now his friend is dead and the suitcase is gone and the girl who has it is deep in hiding so he can’t find the suitcase or the girl. But he keeps tracking her and finally finds her now all he has to do is get close to her and get the suitcase back and the secret that is hidden within it. Only things don’t go as planned and the closer he gets to Izzy the more he is falling in love with her.
What a big mess this is and King has no idea how to get out of it. Will King fall in love with girl and get her or will he get what he came for and go back to Vegas?
3.75 stars–KING by Cassia Leo is a contemporary adult, POWER PLAYERS stand alone, erotic romantic suspense story focusing on twenty-two year old Isabel ‘Izzy’ Lake, and former US soldier Kingston ‘King’ Jameson.
Told from dual first person points of view (Izzy and King) jumping between present day and the recent past KING follows Isabel Lake as she struggles to remain one step ahead of anyone looking for a missing one- point- four million dollars. A few weeks earlier, desperate for cash Izzy spent one night in Vegas as part of the world of legal prostitution that ended before it got started with a dead man on the toilet, and our heroine on the run with a suitcase full of cash, and a secret item hidden in the lining. Changing her identity, and settling down in Valdese, North Carolina, our heroine would soon meet her new neighbour, a sexy contractor who knows more about our heroine than he is willing to admit. Having no idea as to the identity of the man who died on the toilet, Izzy will discover that the politically powerful have set their sights on taking her down. What ensues is the building relationship between Izzy and King, and the fall-out as King is contracted to kill the girl, and return the suitcase and all of its’ contents as soon as possible.
Kingston Jameson is desperate to return the suitcase to its’ rightful owner but desperation comes with threats against the people he loves, people he is willing to protect, to get the job done. Working as a go-between for the politically connected criminal underground, Kingston is unaware that his latest target is a woman that will call to his heart.
The relationship between Izzy and King is one of immediate attraction but a relationship built upon a number of lies. Izzy is wary of anyone who tries to get up close and personal, and King is slowly falling in love with the woman he has been ordered to kill. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
We are introduced to Izzy’s boss Edie Bryant at the local construction rehab store The Junk Drawer; King’s friend and army comrade Santos, as well as the requisite evil who are desperate for the return of the missing suitcase.
The world building follows dual timelines: Kingston as he is questioned by the local police; and Izzy and Kingston’s building relationship as they dance the dance of a romantic relationship built upon a series of lies.
KING by Cassia Leo is a quick read covering several weeks in the life of Izzy Lake as she settles into a routine of normal life having no idea that the man with whom she will fall in love battles between head and heart for our story line heroine. The premise is entertaining and inviting; the romance is sweet and impassioned; the characters are colorful and energetic. On the flip side, I did have a few issues including the author’s use of the phrase or parts thereof –cocks, cock, cocking an eyebrow used twelve times, or some action involving eyebrows nineteen times. I think a good editor or beta reader should have caught the multiple instances of said phrases and words. Overall, KING is an intriguing and entertaining story of enemies to lovers, romance on the run.
It went into too many other books
The timeline of this story made ALL the difference!! Talk about a book that hooks you from the first line! It is a shorter story but all the elements are there so you won’t be let down.
King will give you the build up you desire, the adventure you didn’t know you craved, and the happy ending to end all happy endings.
An original story line
This was a fun book with a good, almost impossible, plot. Loved the high-tension dialogue between the two. Loved the ending!
Jameson Kingston meet Izzy Lake. Well, not exactly “meet”. Putting it simply, she steals a briefcase from his partner and he has to get it back. Oh, there is a whole lot more to it than that because they truly meet as neighbors Jolene and Colton in North Carolina. And instantly there is more than just neighborly affection and bad guy chasing the girl. They have an instant attraction but there are so many obstacles when you cannot be who you are with someone.
She’s feisty and independent and he’s not really all bad. Together they begin to share real pieces of themselves but trust issues get in the way.
The last couple chapters were not what I expected. The whole scenario of getting out of trouble was anticlimactic and glossed over. It needed to be meatier and more suspenseful. The ending? Perfect.
This book definitely pulls you in from the beginning and just won’t let you go. It has a lot of twist and turns that will have you wondering just what the heck is going to happen next. King was awesome, mysterious, and sexy. Izzy was amazing, she was so strong and self sufficient. I really liked this book and can’t wait for more from this author.
Izzy Lake never imagined her life would become such a disaster that she would turn to prostitution. To make matters worse, her first client dies, leaving her with his suitcase filled with money. The temptation is too much and she flee’s to a new life, new name, new person, though she always feels someone will come looking for what she has stolen.
She wasn’t wrong!
King, her new neighbour, ex military, hot, delicious, sexy, helpful and is showing plenty of interest in her well being, but can she trust him?
Izzy made this story for me. She never let down her guard, she didn’t play silly games, she was most definitely a girl determined to keep safe and survive. I quickly came to like this girl a LOT !! King on the other hand, i never quite got to grips with. I felt her attraction to him, but for me, something just didn’t feel right about him. For him to have been a military man he did seem a little naive, nor did he seem ruthless.
I loved the suspense of the story and the plot, but it seemed they went from light flirting into a deep relationship in a blink. At times i wanted more depth into their developing relationship, an felt it just jumped from one part to the next with little chunks missing.
I did enjoy the story but it all felt a little too easy. The danger threatened didn’t really appear and left me feeling a little deflated. Even so i was more than happy that things turned out the best for Izzy !!!
King is the first from the Power Players series that I have read, and I enjoyed it very much. I loved reading and following King and Izzy’s story as they slowly fall in love, even though they really shouldn’t trust each other. I look forward to reading more from this series.
The twists, lies, truths and the back and forth…I love it all!! King is sexy AF!! Izzy is such a strong willed and smart character that can hold her own and that’s very refreshing to me!
I love romance stories where apart of great characters and love, there is also complex and profound storyline.
I was really happy that I found this book written by author Cassia Leo because King story from the beginning was so incredibly suspenseful that I could only assume what will happen next, but even then I was very surprised where whole plot was coming. This story was so addicting that I couldn’t put this book down.
Author blended together present and past story of main characters and revealed all secrets piece by piece which kept me on the emotional edge all the time.
Izzy and King where really great created heroes. Their relation was growing slowly and they’re spending good time with each other but there was so many lies hanging between them.
They quickly found deep attraction and new sensation were waking into their hearts but none of them trusted each other. But still they were curious to know more about each other. There were many reasons why they’re not suppose to be together, but their chemistry was too strong to resist.
Author created story from the dual perspective so the book was even more interesting.
You will be surprise how this story will flow and who is going to pay for the sins.
I love finding new authors and I will definitely be reading more from this author. Lizzy is at the wrong place at the right time. Before her fledging career in prostitution really gets off the ground she stumbles into a situation which is tragic but beneficial for her. She abandons her life in Vegas for small town country living with a suitcase full of money. Then she meets King who offers to fix a leaky faucet for her and sparks fly from there. With each encounter these two are falling more in love but King is not who he appears to be on the surface. When Lizzy discovers who King really is and his motives for engaging in the a relationship with her will be able to forgive him?
The suspense and twists were just ahhhhhh!!! King and Izzy were a dynamic duo that had you thinking one thing and it resulted being another. She was just as savvy and bada$$ as him that it would have you wondering what’s next and also what made him fall in love with her. They had similar upbringings and had gone thru so much that they both were clearly not afraid of anything and just wanted to be completely different from their parents. Great story and great ending.
Even when I think I know what I’m getting from a Cassia Leo novel, I’m taken by surprise, in all the right ways.
This story follows King and Izzy; though they both have other names they will answer to. The story starts with a bang and doesn’t slow down even a little as the story unfolds. It’s one of the most unexpected and fast-paced romances I’ve read in a long time!
Much of the story is told through a police interrogation, but that just adds to the intrigue. The characters have great chemistry, the plot kept me guessing and the ending was satisfying. Separately and together King and Izzy are completely entertaining personalities. Add Steve-Bella to the mix and you can’t help but fall in love.
Another story from Ms. Leo I can’t help but recommend!
I absolutely love everything that Cassia Leo writes. King is part of her Power Players series.
Izzy Lake gets herself into a sticky situation the first night of her new job and the only way to keep herself safe is to disappear She moves far away from Las Vegas and changes everything about herself. She has vowed to whatever it takes to stay alive but still enjoy life. She never expects to be extremely attracted to her new neighbor but what will happen when she figures out who he really is?
King takes every job very seriously. When one of his friends ends up dead and the suitcase he was carrying with important information in it goes missing he will do whatever it takes to find it. He never expected to fall for the girl who has what he is looking for.
I loved the connection between Izzy and King. I loved all the twists and turns this story took. The secondary characters added lots of depth to the storyline. The end of the story was a little rushed but overall I really enjoyed it! I can’t wait to see what Cassia is working on next!!
What happens when you meet a gorgeous, mysterious man while on the run?? You keep him close, very close.
Izzy aka Jolene is on the run after taking something she shouldn’t have ever even seen. Just when things start to settle down for her a gorgeous man walks into her job and turns her life upside down once again.
King aka Colton is sent to North Carolina to retrieve a stolen suitcase. Last thing he was expecting was to fall for the beautiful girl who took it. Once he gets to know her better, plans change and he is about to piss off the wrong person.
Can Izzy and Colton get there happily ever after or will one or both be hurt once the truth is out in the open??
4.5 Stars
King was one of those books where you want to hate the hero but you just can’t. The blurb had me intrigued and ready to get my hands on the book. Once I started I couldn’t stop.
Izzy has had a hard life and when the opportunity strikes to make her life better she jumps. She is off to a new destination to make a new life for herself. She didn’t expect her works to be turned upside down.
King is a hot alpha male that is very loyal. It took me a few chapters to decide if I liked him. He won me over quickly.
If your looking for a fast paced read that will keep you on your toes, you need this book!