Page 2 of Her Billion Dollar Groom

There’s a part of me that doesn’t care. There’s a part of me sayingWell, you made your billions. Sell the company. Why does it matter if you can’t do it anymore? You could just retire and do whatever you wanted. Why make things hard for yourself?

And as tempting as that voice is, I push it away. Because I’m not done with Handshake yet. I have more places to take it, more ideas for features, and a loyal user base who have messaged me to say that it’s the friendliest social media platform they’ve ever used, that they don’t ever want it to die.

I don’t want to sell out. I don’t want Handshake to become something that’s not my dream.

The problem is, I can’t seem to see where on earth we can go from here.

CHAPTER 2

ELIZA

“You’re late,” says my accountant when I waltz into the room.

With a sigh I fling myself into the chair by her desk and pout my cherry-pink lips at her. “It’s not my fault. There were a couple of pre-teens who wanted signatures and selfies, and you know I just can’t say no to young people like that. I wouldn’t want to disappoint them. I do have a brand image to maintain, don’t I?”

I twirl one of my golden curls around my finger and stare at her with the widest eyes I can make.

Most people would melt for this act, but I know it isn’t going to work now. Natasha isn’t that kind of woman. She’s no-nonsense. She’s the best accountant I could ever hope for because she stops me from spending all my money recklessly.

But sometimes I get the feeling that she can’t stand me. I know I act like a bit of a diva at times, but she knows how much I appreciate her. She knows how hard I work to be what I am, and she knows exactly the state of my finances.

“Lovely,” she says, with exactly the amount of conviction I expected. “Well, if your moments of serendipity are over for today, let’s get down to business.”

I sigh and lean forward, resting my elbows on the desk. “Okay, give me the bad news.”

As always, it is bad news. The facts are these:

I’m a pop idol - a media darling, signed at fifteen to sing cute songs about teenage heartbreak. After a meteoric rise to fame, I’ve spent the last thirteen years of my life giving everything I’ve got to this industry, fighting off everyone, from trolls on the internet who accuse me of not writing my own songs, to journalists who can’t keep their noses out of my personal life.

In fairness, I can’t blame them for that. My personal life is pretty juicy, and I’ve made enough of a mess of it to deserve all the clicks their tabloid headlines get.

In my defense, my latest mess isn’t exactly my fault. I mean, the boyfriend was, but apparently my manager - the guy who signed me at fifteen and took me to where I am now - was the kind of guy who saw a teenager and decided that using me would be a great way to make his own fortune.

Never mind that I lost everything in the process. When the story broke that Robert had run off with my entire fortune (the one he’d been secretly transferring to his own bank account for years), the media descended like vultures on a rotting corpse to try and get the latest scoop.

This is the first time in days that I’ve even dared leave the house, and only because Natasha insisted I come to her office in person. I didn’t want to, and was terrified of getting mobbed, but she said that hiding away forever would do me no good. And besidesthat, eating a thousand pints of ice cream would be terrible for my figure.

Natasha starts talking about money, and I pull out my phone and scroll the internet. I’m on every single social media platform that has ever existed. I know it’s probably bad for me to read the comments all the time; it’s one of the things they tell you not to do. But I need to know what people are saying.

Not because I’m vain or anything, but because the nice things give me something to hold on to, and the bad things give me something to laugh at. I don’t care if people don’t like me. I’m tougher than that. But reading the comments has kept me relevant, and staying relevant is how I’ve made my name.

Fortunately, all of the articles about Robert seem to be condemning him for taking advantage of a poor, innocent little girl.

And unfortunately, all of the articles focused on me are about how tragic my love life is. They’re littered with pictures of Mike and me smiling together in the sun, which makes my heart ache for him all over again.

When it rains, it pours, goes that old saying. And it’s true.

Last week, I learned that I was about to lose everything I ever had and that my boyfriend of five years didn’t even love me anymore. Nasty people might have said that they saw it coming, but I truly didn’t. I didn’t think Mike was the one, exactly, but I could have married him and been happy enough. When he wasn’t angry, anyway.

He was a football star, a bit of a player, constantly trying to tell me what to do, and he hated it when I talked back to him. But when he was being sweet, he was so kind. He took meon amazing vacations, and gave me anything I wanted — well, materially, anyway.

I’ve been receiving an outpouring of love on all my socials since, as well as one or two football fans who have been calling me a selfish bitch. But that’s pretty run-of-the-mill as far as bitter old men on the internet go.

Seeing all these people saying he was never good enough for me anyway brings me a step closer to believing it, and it makes me realize that I really need to find some friends. Real friends. It’s harder than it seems when you’re me though.

Natasha keeps talking even as I’m looking at my phone. She knows that I’m listening, or at least she hopes I am.

Really, I just want her to fix all of it and make the problems go away. So, I’ll let her say her piece, and then in about twenty minutes, when she asks me how that sounds, I’ll agree and sign anything she wants me to.

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