Cher: The Memoir, Part 1

They said I was beautiful — but not real. That my smile was perfect — but my past made me broken. I spent years trying to prove I was more than the girl who changed her face to survive the world’s cruelty. I married Julian Vale, believing love would finally see me. I called Serena Blake my sister, trusting her more than my own reflection. And when my world collapsed under secrets, silence, and the weight of never being enough — I disappeared. Then I opened my eyes… Ten years earlier. Before the surgery. Before the vows. Before I forgot who I was beneath the makeup and the mask of confidence. This time, I don’t need to be fixed. This time, I don’t need to be forgiven. I remember every lie. Every betrayal. Every time I silenced my voice to keep the peace. So I’m not here to win back love. I’m not here to punish the past. I’m here to become the woman I was always meant to be — unedited, unafraid, and finally, completely seen. I was more than pretty. This time, I’ll live like I believe it.

WARNING ⚠️ This book contains mature scenes of sexual conduct and erotic themes!! Cherry is a young successful blonde stripper whose world changes when she meets a wealthy Nigerian named Malcolm Balogun. He hires her to be his personal escort during his business trip and not long after, they begin to get sexually drawn to each other. Cherry's policy is to never get sexually involved with her clients but Malcolm's enigma pulls her like a magnet and his experience in the art of sexual pleasure becomes a drug that she can't get enough of.

His songs were better when he had a broken heart. That sentence would change my life after my dream job was dished to me on a shiny, silver platter. All I had to do? Hurt Nash Pierce enough to get him writing good music again. The pop icon’s songs were no longer the phenomena they used to be. His team needed another breakthrough album—like the first he’d penned, using his heartbreak as fuel. The plan was simple: I’d go on tour with him as a backup dancer…and make him fall in love with me. I was hired to inspire—to become embedded into every lyric he wrote. Then, I was to set fire to it all—to destroy every feeling we hoped he’d develop for me. It seemed simple enough. Easy, even. I didn’t expect to be consumed myself—to see so much in the man displayed in the tabloids. I didn’t foresee falling for him. It didn’t occur to me that, while attempting to break his heart, I might just shatter my own. Most of all, I never thought I’d fight so hard to hold on to a relationship that had always been founded on goodbye.

His precious childhood sweetheart got drunk one night and ended up in a stranger’s bed. When she showed up again, she was pregnant—just like me. On the day I gave birth, Harold handed me the divorce papers. "Rachel’s about to return to acting," he said coldly. "She and the baby need a proper title. If a scandal breaks out, it’ll destroy her." Dragging my frail body, I calmly signed the papers. In my previous life, I refused to step aside. I went live, holding my daughter, and exposed the award-winning actress Rachel Underwood for knowingly becoming the other woman. The internet turned on her. She lost every endorsement and was driven to the edge by massive fines—eventually jumping off a building. Harold quietly took care of her funeral... and then stood by as her fans harassed me in the streets, even tried to burn my child and me alive. It was not until I saw him lock the door behind us that I realized—he had wanted us dead all along. Then I woke up. And it was the day he gave me the divorce agreement... again.

Vice and Victor have a plan. Five years in the spotlight to make their fortune, then move into the background, with their own record label. Fast and smart is their motto. Romance will have to wait, especially since their idea of an ideal romance, involves both of them and one woman. When their manager, Aaron, asks them to collaborate with a chart-topping popstar who wants to gravitate into rock, they are dubious. A frequent flyer in the gossip columns over the last twelve months with a history of drug and alcohol problems, they fear she will be difficult and volatile to work with. After being roofied by her music producer, Mirage has learnt the hard way that it is not an equal world. Without proof, she cannot pursue legal recourse, and she is locked into completing another album with her rapist. Meanwhile, Mr Rich has been feeding the industry lies about her having dependency on alcohol and drugs, and the gossip mags have seized upon the stories, slowly tearing her professional reputation into pieces. But Mirage is not a fragile damsel in distress, she is a pop-rock chick, and she is fighting back.

On my eighteenth birthday, the boy I'd secretly loved for years kissed me first. After a night of passion, I traced the marks on my skin and thought it was all a dream. I was ready to make it official. But the next day, my nude photos were plastered across the entire school. When I confronted him, Damien Ashford laughed with bloodshot eyes: "Blame your mother. If she hadn't turned a blind eye while those girls destroyed Rosalie, Rosalie would never have killed herself." "Now let's see — when her own daughter becomes the school whore, will she still just sit back and watch?" That was the moment I understood. Every tender word from the night before had been a weapon. In the end, my mother slapped me hard across the face and dragged me away. Years later, we met again. He had become the Don — the most powerful man in the underworld. And I was a dealer in his brand-new casino. He offered me up like a chip for other men's amusement, then claimed me himself after the game — the winner taking his prize. I didn't resist. Didn't struggle. Obedient as a puppet. But he froze. His eyes locked onto the stretch mark across my stomach.