Time’s Up, Cowboy (Roped in Time #2)

Chapter One

Malika

Malika George hadn’t expected two hundred thousand dollars in small bills to weigh quite so much.

The heavy bag bumped her hip, and she shifted the wide leather strap, trying to lessen the load. The elevator to the penthouse apartment she shared with three roommates was taking its time. She jiggled her leg with impatience. The stairs would have been faster, but the bag she carried was awkward.

The money stowed inside it came from her sister Aisha.

She’d transferred it to Malika through a local developer in Los Angeles who was a business friend of her husband’s.

Malika was well acquainted with the hawala system of exchange, although this was the first time she’d received such a large lump sum of money.

She’d had to sit on the developer’s knee and rub his bald head as part of the deal, but he knew better than to mess too much with Adeel Jiorji’s baby sister and she’d been feeling indulgent.

She’d taken an additional twenty thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills from her bank.

The bank was familiar with her petty cash withdrawals—she spent more than that in restaurants in a month because none of her roommates could cook—so no questions were asked.

She had the money stashed in her boots, where the crisp bills scratched her ankles.

Freedom was so close she could taste it.

She’d gotten the idea of disappearing from a television series one of her roommates enjoyed, although the roommate watched it more for the handsome male lead than the storyline.

Malika liked the thought of hitchhiking across the United States and exploring America.

She couldn’t hide from Adeel forever, but she’d make him work to find her.

The gleaming doors parted, and she stepped inside.

The black glass of the elevator walls reflected curve-hugging jeans, high-heeled boots, and a sleeveless red blouse that showed a hint of white lace at her cleavage.

The blouse, tame by American standards, would have shocked her sisters, but she had great breasts—why not show them off when she could?

She’d twisted her dark brown hair into a loose knot that spilled curls. Light green eyes sparked with excitement. An American adventure was just what she needed. To become an old man’s second wife, however…

She didn’t need that.

Anger burned behind her perky breasts, nudging aside the thrill of adventure. A second wife. She was the sister of Adeel Jiorji, the wealthiest and most powerful man in Djitania. She would be second to no other woman. How dare he expect it of her?

The elevator doors purred as they parted. She stepped into the lobby of her apartment building—the building Adeel owned. It was late evening for the building’s mostly senior inhabitants, and the lobby was empty except for a few potted plants and some sofas and chairs.

A security guard lounged in his office, half asleep, to her right.

Marco. He waved. She blew a kiss to him that he pretended to catch.

The black lobby doors to freedom beckoned.

She’d take a cab to the bus station—the driver would know where it was—and grab a Greyhound to the first destination it offered, then find a motel.

She’d never stayed in a motel before. Or ridden a bus.

It all sounded deliciously common. She’d never flagged down a cab herself, either.

One of her roommates usually took care of that.

But there was always one waiting outside her building.

She crossed the carpeted floor and had almost reached the lobby doors when she sensed movement behind her. Don’t look back.

She couldn’t help herself. She turned to look. Gut instinct forewarned what—who—she would find.

Adeel lounged in a chair, one elegantly clad leg thrown carelessly over the other. He’d had his back to the elevator, which was why she hadn’t seen him, but he’d been watching the lobby doors. His bodyguards would be waiting outside.

“Going somewhere, Malika?”

Dark eyes regarded her with less indulgence than usual. His tone was as calm as his expression, but she wasn’t fooled. The excitement flagellating her chest turned to alarm. She knew her brother, and his eyes didn’t lie. He was angry.

*

The wine bar was as stodgy as her brother, and he obviously visited it often, because they were whisked away to a private room the moment they walked in.

The private room possessed four deep leather chairs, a cheerful fireplace that provided low light but contributed no heat, and a short, stout, round wooden table for drinks that better suited a Southern memaw’s front parlor than a high-end Los Angeles neighborhood. How deadly boring.

Her bag had been handed to one of Adeel’s bodyguards, and it waited with him in the limo.

She’d never see it again. Adeel hadn’t asked where she’d gotten the money.

He likely already knew. Fortunately, Aisha’s husband adored her, and he had no fear of Adeel.

His family, while not as powerful as the Jiorjis, was powerful enough.

Malika hadn’t seen her eldest brother in over a year.

He hadn’t changed much in those months. Still handsome, despite the widening bands of gray marking his temples.

Technically, Adeel was her half brother.

His mother was their father’s first wife.

Her mother was his third. She wasn’t sure of Adeel’s exact age, but knew he was in his mid-forties, and close to twenty years older than she.

He prided himself on remaining physically fit.

An expert horseman, he occasionally jockeyed his own horses in cross-desert races.

He liked adventure. A trait they had in common.

“When was the last time you attended a class?” he asked.

It wasn’t the question she had expected he’d lead with, and she fumbled her answer. “Yest—last Thursday.”

Adeel studied the clipped tip of his unlit cigar. “Interesting. School has been out for a month, not that it matters. You dropped out last fall.”

She’d known her roommates were in Adeel’s employ. Their polite agreement was that it wasn’t acknowledged. To have one of them tattle on her as if she were a wayward child … this was an outrage.

“Who told you such lies?” she demanded.

“It doesn’t matter who told me.” Adeel’s gaze raked her appearance. The slight curl to his lip voiced his disapproval louder than words. “This is no way for a Jiorji to dress.”

She lifted her chin. “Malika George dresses the same as every other woman in America.” She stressed the anglicized version of her name that she preferred.

His elegant shoulders shifted under the raw silk of his shirt. “You can play dress-up if you like. But you are not an American, Malika Jiorji. Eli will expect you to behave with more dignity once you’re married to him. He believes in tradition.”

Eli Chamas. A man at least thirty years her senior.

His age wasn’t the issue. Her sisters claimed older men made the best lovers. That they were more inclined to be generous, both with their affection and their money.

But men did not rule their households. Malika would not become any man’s second wife. She’d seen how her mother, a third wife, was treated.

“Please, Adeel. Leave me here. Forget about me.” It shouldn’t be hard. As the daughter of a third wife, and the youngest of a very large, very rich family, she’d been forgotten for most of her life.

“I forget none of my sisters. I’m responsible for you all, and part of my responsibility is to see each of you safely married.

You’re twenty-six years old, too old to continue pretending to be a student, and marriage is long overdue.

Eli has offered a generous mahr for you, and I’ve accepted it on your behalf.

Besides, if I were to forget your existence, how would you care for yourself?

” His eyes darkened. “Aisha won’t be sending more money. I promise you that.”

A mahr was supposed to be hers, in case she was widowed or divorced and forced to return to her brother’s household. It would pay for her keep.

And there was the problem. The mahr was hers in name only. Adeel held the purse strings.

“That’s what’s wonderful about the US. I can earn my own money.”

“How? You’re here on a student visa—which expired the day you dropped out of school. You could be deported tomorrow.”

“There are lots of ways for women to make money in America without a work visa.”

Adeel recoiled. “You will not work as a servant,” he said, shocked.

“Of course not.”

Be a servant? She’d rather become an old man’s second wife.

Besides, she already had a better idea. One of her roommates ran a dominatrix business online that Adeel knew nothing about. Men—sometimes women—contacted her, begging her to order them to do intimate things to themselves. She had more calls than she could manage.

Malika would do something similar. Her sisters had often been indiscreet about their marriages in her presence.

Thanks to their talk she had a good idea of what men liked to do with their wives.

One brother-in-law dressed as a pirate and insisted his wife pleasure him with a vibrator while he bent over an old wooden sea chest he’d acquired for the purpose.

Another liked to be ridden as if he were a horse and whipped with a crop.

Not all chose to be dominated—Aisha’s husband preferred her to dress as a concubine and dance suggestively for him, then do naughty things to him with her mouth.

A few lacked any imagination and relied on their wives to inspire them.

They all, however, desired to be seduced.

The secret was in helping them unlock and indulge those secret desires, then send them home to their wives. Her services could be considered therapeutic. That was where money came in. How hard could it be?

She couldn’t discuss such a business proposition with her brother, of course.

“I’ll reenroll in school,” she said, trying to sound resigned about it, even as her insides burst with excitement. But her excitement didn’t last long.