Page 22 of Her Billion Dollar Groom

The entire audience holds their breaths, the silence obviously artificial.

“But right now, we have two very special guests with us live in the studio. One of them is America’s sweetheart, a pop singer who’s grown up with so many of us and continues to steal everyone’s hearts, and her new husband, a CEO, an inventor, a guy whose brain knows no limits. Will you please welcome Eliza and Jason?”

The crowd roars like a stampede of animals, and I plaster my special people-pleasing smile on my face. Jason’s palm is clammy in mine, and I squeeze his fingers tightly.

The bright lights don’t bother me. I’m a performer, but I can see a drop of sweat gleaming at his temple. This is too exposingfor him. Photoshoots are one thing, and so is talking to the newspapers, but live TV… that’s a whole other beast, and it’s clearly not one that Jason is prepared to deal with.

I hear the faint sound of the camera zooming in on us as we’re transmitted to the nation, and I try to send some sort of psychic message to Jason that he should be smiling, even if he doesn’t want to be. He clearly doesn’t get the message.

I want to kick him under the table, but that would be too obvious. Instead, I’ll do damage control. That’s something I’ve gotten very good at lately.

Lately, my life has been such a disaster that dealing with the media has actually been a nice relief after dealing with my personal issues.

“Oh, my God, I am so excited for you to be here!” squeals Susie. It’s impossible to tell if she means it or not.

Bertie turns to us, flashing an artificial TV grin. “So Jason,” he asks, and I feel Jason tense beside me. I squeeze his hand again. “There’s hardly anyone in all of America who’s not totally jealous of you right now. How did you guys meet?”

“At an award show,” he states, then doesn’t elaborate.

There’s an awkward moment of hesitation where Jason’s clearly finished with his sentence, and Bertie is trying to decide whether he needs to jump in to get Jason to say more. This is live TV and silence doesn’t go down well.

I jump in to rescue him from drowning in the spotlight. “I don’t think we realized we were in love the first time we set eyes on each other,” I say. “It was a few months ago, some boring event we were at.”

The audience chuckles politely at my comment even though I’m not sure what I’m giving them to laugh about.

“We met in passing, said hello, and thought nothing more of it. But a few weeks ago, when we met again, I think something clicked for us both. I was nursing a broken heart, and Jason was looking for something meaningful. We went out for drinks that night, and that’s when I realized, that one fateful look was all it had taken for our love to be true.”

The audienceawwsat us like they actually care about our story, and I smile, leaning into Jason, hoping to feel him relax. He doesn’t.

“And who proposed to who?” asks Susie, though her eyes are on Jason. I can feel him panicking, his eyes wide and shining under the studio light.

“It was Jason.” I grin, squeezing his arm.

He agrees with a grunt.

“Well, it was kind of a mutual idea, but Jason was like, oh, I’ve got this crazy feeling and just confessed to me right there that he loved me and that he thought we should get married. And I was so taken by his confidence and openness that I couldn’t do anything except say yes. Isn’t that right, love?”

I shoot him a look to sayIt’s your turn to speak now. “Yes, that’s right,” he says, smiling thinly, “I did say that.”

He says nothing else, and Bertie takes the conversation into his own hands again. “We’ve all seen the beautiful pictures. It looked like a really gorgeous ceremony, and if I can say it, you were stunning in your dress, Eliza.”

“Thank you.” I’m giggling on the outside, but on the inside all I’m worrying about is Jason.

“You two must be really happy together.”

“We are,” I say, and Jason echoes, “we are”.

They ask me a couple of questions about my upcoming album, and I take as long as possible to answer the questions. I know that after this, Jason is going to get asked about Handshake, and I know that he’s not going to want to answer.

I yap on about pushing my musical talents to the limit and trying out something new, all the same kind of crap you usually say when you’re asked about what you’re working on. I mean, there is a grain of truth in it. I do like to keep trying new things, or else I would get bored.

Hell, that’s probably why I married Jason.

But the truth is, I haven’t been feeling as excited about my new album as I’ve been pretending to. I love making music, but none of it’s feeling right. If I didn’t have a deadline coming up, I would scrap the whole thing and start over. But I don’t have time for that, and that’s not what the audience wants to hear anyway.

When musical artists sayI’m trying something new, what people want to hear is the same, but different.

No matter how much I might want to experiment or change my sound, the fact is that I’m bound to make what will sell. And my image, as it is, is what people want.

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