The heart Beneath the Thorn
he Heart Beneath the Thorn — A Modern Beauty and the Beast Retelling 💔
In a glittering city of fortunes and façades, The Heart Beneath the Thorn reimagines Beauty and the Beast through the broken glass of betrayal, redemption, and forbidden love.
Emilia Grace, a fierce yet quietly bruised soul, is just trying to survive. Between juggling hospital shifts, family debts, and the ghosts of her past, she’s never had the luxury of dreaming. But fate has a cruel sense of humor when she’s assigned to care for Max Carter—the cold-hearted billionaire who once made her school years a waking nightmare.
Max was the golden boy with the cruel smirk—the privileged heir with everything, except peace. Years later, a tragic accident leaves him scarred, not just physically but emotionally. Isolated and emotionally exiled, Max is now a man haunted by his past choices and a legacy wrapped in barbed wire.
When Emilia walks back into his life, she's no longer the girl he mocked—she's the woman who might just be his undoing.
Forced into each other’s orbit, what begins as a war of words slowly melts into lingering stares, late-night confessions, and an unraveling of everything they thought they knew. Max, the beast of her memories, begins to reveal the tender man beneath the mask—a man who collects poetry he never shares, who builds gardens no one sees, and who might have always loved the girl he couldn’t protect.
But trust doesn’t bloom easily in thorn-covered soil. And when old enemies, buried secrets, and a scandalous inheritance come to light, Emilia must decide: can she love the man who once broke her, now that he’s the only one trying to piece her back together?
A tale of enemies-to-lovers, second chances.
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Chapter: Beast I woke up in a hospital bed.Pain.That was the first thing I felt. Not dull. Not aching. Excruciating.Like every inch of my body had been torn apart and stitched back together by someone with trembling hands. My ribs throbbed with each breath. My head pulsed like it might split open. I couldn’t open my eyes all the way—everything was blurry, shapes melting into white walls and blinking monitors.The smell of antiseptic stung my nose. The distant beep of machines created a sterile symphony that filled the too-quiet room.I tried to move.Nothing responded.My limbs were dead weight. My legs might as well have been cinder blocks. My arms felt foreign, like they didn’t belong to me anymore.Something was wrong.And then—I heard it.A voice, muted at first, like it was floating through water, but unmistakable.“Max…”Another voice—professional, cold, sterile.“Mr. Carter, can you hear me? You’ve suffered a spinal injury. The tests are in. You’ve lost feeling in your legs. There’s a chan
Last Updated: 2025-06-19
Chapter: The Weight of LoveThe smell of antiseptic and lavender filled the small house.The antiseptic was for the sickness.The lavender was for hope—as if the soft scent could mask the fear settling into my bones. It didn’t. Not really. But it was the only thing I could do. The only thing that made this place feel like home instead of a waiting room for death.I stirred the soup slowly, the wooden spoon clinking against the side of the pot. My hands trembled, though I pretended they didn’t. Pretended everything was fine. Pretended the world outside didn’t exist.My mother barely ate these days, but I still tried.I tried to cook.Tried to clean.Tried to keep my grades up in night classes I no longer had the energy for.Tried to keep the lights on. Tried to be strong. Tried to keep myself from falling apart.But every day, I felt like I was losing her.And losing myself."Go, Emilia," she said suddenly from the couch, her voice thin but insistent."Ma, eat," I replied, forcing a gentle smile as I brought the
Last Updated: 2025-06-19
Chapter: King Without a QueenThe RiseSuccess should feel good.But all I feel is nothing.By twenty-five, I had it all.The penthouse. The power. The profile.Max Carter—Forbes’ 25 Under 25. The golden boy of Wall Street.A prodigy. A king in a suit.A CEO before I could legally rent a car.People loved to say my name.In meetings, in magazines, in places that once slammed the door in my face.I’d walk into boardrooms and watch grown men—men who’d built empires—sit straighter, like the weight of my presence made the air heavier.They said I was brilliant. Ruthless. The next big thing.What they didn’t know?I failed Algebra twice in high school.My father pulled strings just to get me into Columbia.And every “win” I racked up came with a footnote stamped in his name.They didn’t know that sometimes I’d wake up in my million-dollar bed, sunlight pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows, and feel like I was watching someone else’s life.I was successful.I was rich.I was empty.The Rot Beneath the GoldI had mon
Last Updated: 2025-06-19
Chapter: Emilia's CurrentlyThe Concrete Jungle Doesn’t Care About the WeakAnd right now, I was at the bottom of the food chain.I had nothing.No job. No apartment. No stability.Just a pile of rejection emails, a near-empty bank account, and a city that chewed people up and spit them out like yesterday’s garbage.The FallLosing my job at the firm was a death sentence.Corporate jobs in Manhattan didn’t grow on trees, especially for nobodies like me. I wasn’t some Ivy League legacy or a partner’s kid. I was just an intern—temporary, replaceable, forgettable. And now, with a ruined reference from Max Carter himself, I might as well have been blacklisted.No one would say it out loud, but I heard the whispers. Max Carter fired her. That means she’s useless.Never mind that I worked myself into the ground. Never mind that I came in early, left late, and ran on caffeine and sheer fear of failure. None of it mattered. One mistake. One misunderstanding. One moment where I stood up for myself—and that was it. Career
Last Updated: 2025-06-18
Chapter: The Last DanceI had planned a lot of things in my life.My escape to New York. My career. My independence. The careful climb from invisible girl to a woman with ambition. I had battled every demon in my past just to have a seat at the table, to matter. But nothing—absolutely nothing—could have prepared me for planning Max Carter’s charity gala.For weeks, I spent every waking hour drowning in guest lists, five-star caterers, luxury floral arrangements, and an obscene budget that could probably end world hunger—not that Max cared. He signed off on invoices without blinking. I could have ordered a live tiger for the ballroom and he wouldn’t have noticed.I tried to explain the importance of the charity he was supposedly supporting—something about childhood education grants—but his eyes glazed over every time.“Right, right,” he waved a dismissive hand. “The little, uh—poor children, right?”I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Underprivileged students.”“Yeah, yeah, that,” he said, already looking at hi
Last Updated: 2025-06-18
Chapter: History Repeats ItselfThe Big Apple where dreams come true, that's what New York was supposed to be my fresh start.I left everything behind—the small town, the suffocating streets where everyone knew everyone’s business, the bad memories that clung to me like second skin. Most importantly, I left him. Max Carter. The boy who had spent every moment of high school tearing me down. The golden boy with the cruel smile, who knew exactly how to wield words like knives and watch me bleed while the world cheered him on.I told myself that chapter was closed. That he was closed. He can't hurt you miles away.In New York, I was Emilia Grace—ambitious, driven, focused. A woman no longer defined by whispers behind locker doors or hateful stares across cafeteria tables. I had clawed my way to a prestigious internship at Harrison & Lowe, one of the most respected law firms in Manhattan. It wasn’t just a job—it was my lifeline. My ticket to everything I’d spent years dreaming of: stability, independence, success. A care
Last Updated: 2025-06-18
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