𝗧𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 | 𝗔 𝗖𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗲

𝘿𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙚 to the meeting, Mallorie made an effort to recount the past 72 hours. Besides being groggy, her eyelids feeling as though they were attached to anchors, she had whiplash from how quickly things had progressed with her new job. Between signing what felt like an entire library of legal documents and preparing for her hiatus from the clinic, she had also started to familiarize herself with Michael's life.

The ending of their last conversation left her feeling clueless and small. Michael had been considerably patient in informing her of what the meeting would entail, but there was still a myriad of terms and habits specific to a popstar's life that she felt she would need to know. Asking Michael directly for details wasn't an option since she was eager to end the call after his startling compliment.

Her fingertips tugged at the seatbelt to adjust its length across her chest, suddenly feeling suffocated by it.

"What if I can't sleep and I like talking to you instead?"

In hindsight, she didn't know if she was embarrassed or delighted by what he'd said to her. Her physical response—the quickening of her heartbeat and the flush in her cheeks—certainly proved that she felt something. But having time to reflect on the call and the situation as she studied Michael in preparation for her first day at work with him, she knew better than to play fangirl and fall at his feet at every kind thing he said.

With new resolve to start off the day on the right foot, Mallorie attempted to rub the sleepiness from her eyes without smearing her mascara around. She touched her lips with plum tinted chapstick and defined her curls with a bit of mousse so they were more tamed as they sat over her shoulder. The driving distance from her small apartment in Encino to the skyscraping headquarters of Epic Records left her almost an hour of downtime. Some newly published medical journals accompanied her on the ride with the intention of being read in the meantime, but the combination of the dulled sun, the picture of the cloudless peace that was the early morning sky moving past her window, and the dainty classical music the driver chose to play lulled her right back to sleep.

She was only half conscious when knuckles rapped against the window right above her head. Startled, she jolted awake and struggled to come to, the fact that the man outside her window was simply a stranger dressed in a dark tuxedo and shades making the task more difficult. In her sleepy daze, she shifted upright and feebly pulled at the ends of her curls, cursing herself for having deflated them by laying against them on the ride.

The excited shrieks of fans could be heard not far off in the distance, and Mallorie almost wrote it off as part of her dream. Their surroundings from what she could see from inside the Lincoln's tinted windows didn't provide much more information either. Based on the elevator sign she spotted some feet away and the lines painted around the pavement, she estimated that they had stopped in a lower level parking garage of the building.

"Miss Powell, you have to exit the vehicle now. He will escort you to the conference room," her mystery driver's baritone voice sounded from around the partition.

"Okay. Thank you for getting me here safely," she murmured then flinched at the rasp in her voice. How hard had she slept?

Making haste to gather her books and shove them into her tote first, Mallorie then exited the vehicle. The man that had knocked on the window to wake her quickly joined her side and started a brisk stride toward the elevator. Before she had gotten into the car, she felt excited to be present and begin her work as part of Michael Jackson's team. Now she felt she could ascribe that excitement to nothing more than her sleep-deprived stupor. Her stomach quivered as she envisioned herself stepping into a room full of powerful executives, and even more so when she pictured them to be as domineering as Michael's manager. Even the luscious maroon-carpeted and bronze-detailed elevator made her feel unimportant.