Beauty for the Beast Chapter 01

Beauty for the Beast Chapter 01

A fire took half my face. My one hundred and eighth job interview ended the same way as all the rest.

The credit card bills kept piling up. I had no choice — I applied for a live-in caregiver position.

The agency warned me before I started. The pay was unreal, but the employer was paralyzed, volatile, and — their word — unhinged. They told me to watch myself.

I took the job anyway. I needed the cash.

Then the double doors opened, and every drop of blood in my body turned cold.

The man in the wheelchair was my ex-fiancé. Julian Thorne. Arrogant, untouchable — a mafia godfather.

Three years ago, the same fire that ruined my face burned our wedding to the ground.

I ran. My face looked like melted wax, and the shame of it — the sheer humiliation — meant I could never let him see me again.

Seventeen reconstructive surgeries followed. The scars had faded, but they had never disappeared — ridged lines still cut across both cheekbones.

Julian would never recognize me. I was sure of it.

“A woman?” His gaze dragged over me, slow and unimpressed. “And an ugly one at that.”

The estate manager caught my arm and pulled me aside.

“He hasn’t been the same since his fiancée walked out on him a few years back. He’s despised women ever since.”

I lowered my eyes to the floor.

The estate manager brought me to the study. I pushed the doors open, and there he was — sitting rigidly by the window, afternoon light carving out the hard lines of his jaw.

“Boss.” The estate manager raised his voice. “Your new caregiver is here.”

Julian didn’t look up from the papers in his lap. “Get out.”

My fingers twisted into the fabric of my apron.

Fired before my first shift had even started? What about the contract — the severance clause?

“You heard the Don.” The manager’s elbow dug into my side. “Move.”

I turned to leave.

“Stop.” I froze in the doorway, my back still to him.

“Name.”

“Sull… Sullivan.” The word barely came out. A fake name, obviously. My real one had gone up in smoke with that wedding dress three years ago.

“Sullivan.” The word left his mouth like ice. “Fitting.”

The Julian I knew would never have said that.

He’d grown up in the Family, but the man I remembered held doors open, said “please” and “thank you.” A gentleman to his core.

My gaze caught on his hand, still and heavy on the armrest. What happened to you?

He was supposed to be happy by now.

I walked away so he wouldn’t have to carry the weight of what I’d become. He deserved a wife whose face didn’t make children cry.

I told myself he’d mourn me for a month, maybe less, and then find someone who actually deserved him.

So what the hell happened?