After the Chase (Noah & Chase #2)

Prologue

CHASE

Three Months Earlier - France

The mayor's office smells like lavender and old paper, the sunlight streams through the windows that overlook fields of purple stretching toward distant hills.

It should be peaceful here, romantic, the kind of place people dream about for destination weddings, with photographers and flower arrangements and guests who've traveled across continents to witness love.

But there are no photographers here. No flowers. No guests. Just Noah, standing in front of Monsieur Beaumont's desk with the stillness of a coiled snake, and me, watching my fiancé dismantle a man's resistance with nothing but his voice and his eyes.

"I don't think you understand," Noah says, his tone absolutely devoid of warmth. "We're getting married today and you will perform the ceremony.”

At a guess I would say Monsieur Beaumont is around sixty years old, with his silver hair and kind eyes that are currently wide with confusion and growing alarm. He adjusts his glasses, glancing between Noah and me as if he is hoping I'll intervene.

"Monsieur, this is not possible. There are legal requirements that have to be followed, banns must be posted, documents must be filed and there is a waiting period of ten days…"

"No." Noah says, without raising his voice which made the one word sound more of a threat than if he had shouted in his face. "There is no waiting period for us, this is an exceptional circumstance and I know you can waive those requirements."

"But I cannot simply…"

Noah leans forward, placing both hands flat on the mayor's desk and Monsieur Beaumont flinches away.

"You can, and you will. Because I've already made a donation to your town's restoration fund.

Fifty thousand euros. The transfer will complete within the hour, contingent of course on your cooperation. "

The mayor's face pales. "Monsieur, this is highly irregular. I could lose my position."

"You won't." Noah's eyes don't blink. "Because there's nothing illegal about performing a marriage ceremony for two consenting adults who have provided all necessary documentation.

Which we have." He slides a folder across the desk containing passports, birth certificates, proof of residency, all immaculately organized.

"The only question is whether you choose to help us, or whether I need to contact the regional prefect and explain how you've been obstructing a legal process.

I'm very thorough with my complaints and I will have the evidence to back up my claims."

Noah taps his phone, which sits on the desk between them, recording light blinking red.

When did he do that? I should be horrified and pull Noah aside, telling him this isn't how normal people get married, that he can't just bully a French official into performing an impromptu ceremony through intimidation and bribery.

But I scoff to myself as this is Noah, what else would I expect?

So instead, I stand back and I watch with fascination how Noah controls the situation, how his body commands the room with its strong presence, the lack of emotion on his face, everything is completely controlled and I'm fascinated.

Because Noah isn't doing this for power or ego.

He's doing this for me. For us. He woke up this morning in our rented villa, looked at me over breakfast, and said, "We’re getting married today. "

He said it while my eggs were midway to my mouth on my fork. No grand gesture, or asking, it was a simple decision that he had made. I just nodded in response, with the biggest grin on my face as I couldn’t make my voice work because the excitement was too much.

And now here we are, me dressed in a white linen shirt with tan pants and all six-foot three inches of Noah in all black, a black linen shirt with plain black pants looking like a sexy ass panther with all those tattoos on display under that gorgeous, tanned skin.

Only his face and ass are free from ink.

After I briefly devour Noah with my eyes, my attention falls back to Monsieur Beaumont's as I notice his hands tremble while opening the folder, reviewing our paperwork with the desperate hope of finding some disqualifying error.

I know there isn't one as Noah doesn't make errors. The reason I know this, is because the stuff I pretend he doesn’t do has never come back on him and I’m grateful for that.

"I... I would need witnesses," the mayor says weakly. "Two witnesses are required by law."

"Already arranged." Noah pulls out his phone, types something, and within ninety seconds there's a knock at the door.

Two people enter, a dark-haired woman in her thirties wearing a blue sundress, and a man, perhaps fifty, in work clothes, both looking confused and slightly nervous.

Noah must have found them in the town square, offered them cash, told them exactly where to be and when. Why does that make my stomach flip?

"These are our witnesses," Noah says.

The woman is called Céline, and as she introduces herself, she glances at me with concern. "Monsieur, are you... is this what you want?"

I smile at her, warm and genuine, because I need her to understand. "Yes, don’t worry."

Noah's hand finds the small of my back, and it feels like a branding touch, all possessive as the physical contact radiates through my entire body.

Monsieur Beaumont looks defeated as he knows he's lost. Noah always wins.

"Very well," the mayor says quietly, his voice heavy with resignation. "If you'll both stand here..."

The ceremony is brief and stripped of all romance except the kind that exists in Noah's absolute determination to claim me legally and for eternity, as that’s what this is really about.

Monsieur Beaumont reads the required words, his voice flat, while Céline and the man, who I find out is called Pierre, stand awkwardly to the side.

The room starts to become smaller as I look at Noah, who doesn't look at the mayor. He looks at me. His eyes have deepened in color from his usual intense green to a dark moss, like he has been taken over by another being, and it makes my breath catch. I’m aware from my experience as a therapist and with Noah that this isn’t love for him.

He doesn't experience love the way other people do.

But there's intensity. Focus. The same expression he gets when he's inside me, when his hands are wrapped around my throat, when he's whispering that I belong to him and no one else will ever touch me. It’s something more than love, more deadly, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

"Do you, Noah Bryson, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

"And do you, Chase Blackford, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do,” I say, my voice is steady because I've never been more certain of anything in my life.

"Then by the authority vested in me by the French Republic, I now pronounce you married."

Noah's hand cups the back of my neck firmly as he kisses me with a possessive intensity that’s neither passionate or tender. It's a claiming of another person and a reminder that I'm his now, legally and completely.

When he pulls back, his thumb brushes my jaw. "Mine," he murmurs, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

"Yours," I agree.

Céline and Pierre sign the marriage certificate with obvious relief that this strange encounter is ending. Noah hands each of them five hundred euros in cash, which is far more than necessary, and they leave quickly, probably wondering what they just witnessed.

Monsieur Beaumont processes the paperwork in silence, his hands still shaking slightly from what I assume is an adrenaline drop. When he slides the official certificate across his desk, Noah takes it without thanks and grabs my hand. We walk out into the Provencal sunshine as husbands.

It’s later in the evening and I'm sitting at the villa's writing desk with my journal open, fountain pen in hand, trying to capture what happened today. The window is open, warm evening air carrying the scent of rosemary and sea air, and I can hear Noah in the shower.

Noah married me today, I write. He didn't ask if I wanted a traditional wedding or if I wanted to wait or if I wanted my family there.

He simply decided it was happening, and then he made it happen.

He intimidated a small-town mayor, bribed him with a substantial donation, and coerced two strangers into witnessing our marriage. The day has been beautiful.

I pause, reading that last sentence. Has been beautiful.

Is that true? Or is that what I need to believe?

The therapist in me still tries to break free every now and again, sometimes with my ex-friend and colleague Liam’s voice in my head.

I internally find myself recording Noah’s complete lack of empathy, his inability to form genuine emotional connections, his textbook antisocial personality disorder.

I should do a report on myself as sometimes I wake in the night and think I should be concerned.

Noah displays every classic manipulation tactic even today: intimidation, financial coercion, veiled threats, complete disregard for others' autonomy.

But then I look at him and the rest of me, mainly the part that's been falling into Noah's gravity since he first walked into my office, sees something else.

I see a man who wanted me so completely that he refused to wait another day.

A man who looked at any obstacles and simply removed them.

A man who claimed me with the same ruthless persistence he brings to everything.

I know he doesn't love me the way normal people love, I write.

He can't. His brain doesn't work that way.

But he possesses me and owns me in every way.

He's built his entire world around keeping me, controlling me, ensuring that I belong exclusively to him.

And God help me, I've never felt more wanted in my entire life.

I flip back through earlier entries at brief notes from our therapy sessions that I kept, observations about his behavior patterns, clinical assessments of his pathology.

After we got together, my professional case notes transformed into journalling.

Behind closed doors my notes became more personal and intimate.

Less about his issues and more about how my obsession with him was growing more with each day.

The curiosity of how he works taking over my life.

I'm going to keep documenting this, I write. Our marriage. Our travels. The way Noah moves through the world with absolute certainty that he's entitled to whatever he wants. The way he looks at me like I'm the only thing that matters, and especially how he removes any obstacle in his way.

I stop writing, pen hovering over the page.

Removes obstacles.

I allow the locks on my brain to loosen as I briefly remember my ex, Wade, and how he disappeared after that shitshow of a break up when Noah appeared in my life.

I remember how I cut off from the situation as I promised myself to forever live in denial.

Noah has never hidden anything from me, but he knew that I had my limit.

So I never asked Noah about it as I never wanted confirmation.

But I knew. And that’s where the scary part comes in as I didn’t care about what he did. It was the tendril in my stomach of how thrilling it felt, but I squashed it down as soon as it appeared.

The way he removes obstacles, I continue writing, my hand steadier now.

The way he ensures nothing threatens what's his. But I will never run from it like I would advise another person or a patient, I’m too far gone as I can’t live without him.

I'm his now. But as time progresses I want to understand him more and not live in denial.

I want to keep a record of every aspect of his pathology, every manifestation of his obsession.

Not as his therapist, as that boundary is long gone.

But as his husband. As the only person who gets to see the full extent of what he is.

This journal is going to become something darker than a love story. It's going to be a case study of psychopathy in its purest form. A record of my own descent into complicity, and I can't wait to see where it leads.

I close the journal and look at the ring on my finger, a simple platinum ring with no engraving, chosen by Noah, again without consulting me. It fits perfectly because Noah knows everything about me. My measurements, preferences and my weaknesses.

From the bedroom, I hear Noah call my name, summoning me toward him. I stand, leaving the journal on the desk, and go to him, because that’s what you do when you belong to someone like Noah, you submit yourself fully.

And nothing else matters.