This chapter picks up where the last one leaves off :)

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it." - William Shakespeare

I nodded, slipping out of his bed. "I need to start getting ready. You okay here?"

He sighed and a ghost of a smile flickered across his face. "You don't need to worry about me America." I walked to the door connecting our suites, turning back to look at him one last time. He looked defeated but I knew he was just getting it all out of his system now before he had to face the people. He had to be strong for them.

I couldn't pretend to know what he was feeling. He had told me that though he didn't necessarily like his father, he didn't want his father to die. My relationship with my father was filled with love and companionship whereas his was plagued with fear and abandonment. The death of his mother pained him but the death of his father…it aged him beyond his youthful nineteen years of age, it matured him past the point of return. I could already see the subtle changes that just came with the territory of being king. They weren't necessarily bad but I was starting to get scared that he would lose himself under the oncoming onslaught of responsibilities. I was scared he would retreat to that dark place again and I wouldn't be able to call him back.

Mary had my black dress waiting for me in the bathroom once I had gotten my bath and done my hair. It was simple: knee-length, a-line with triangular cut-outs at the neckline that added a subtle flair to the design. It made me sick to remember my last time wearing a black dress in the palace. I quickly pushed the thought back to my mind as I reminded myself of the conversation Maxon and I had already had concerning Marlee and Carter's future places in the palace.

"Where's Lucy?" I asked Mary, racking my mind to remember if she had said she'd be missing.

"Officer Leger had a surgery this morning for his leg, I believe. She was here to get everything set out for you but as soon as he was moved into recovery she went down to meet him. I assured her that I would be fine here," Mary explained simply.

I nodded, retaining that information. I was sad at how little concern I felt for Aspen. It was no longer my place to be scared for him but I didn't expect for my feelings for him to fade so quickly. I smiled though when I thought of a certain blonde in the room next door that would be my husband in the coming year or so. "Have you thought of anyone for me to hire as another maid yet?" I asked her gently, not wanting to reopen any healed wounds.

She sighed quietly. "There are a few but I'm not sure if they want the job because they really want it or because they want to work with the queen." She paused. "I am glad you asked me though because I wouldn't want you hiring just anybody."

"Me neither," I told her as I felt her slide the last pin into my hair. I glanced in the mirror at my make-up one last time and then walked back to Maxon's room. He was in his closet, standing in front of a mirror as a man tied his tie for him.

I blushed and stood in the doorway as Maxon caught sight of me loitering. He tugged on the sleeves of his shirt and said, "That'll be all I need Benjamin, thank you." The man bowed deeply at him first and then to me before leaving the room.

Maxon reached for his cufflinks and put them on with dexterous fingers, years of practice making it easy for him to put them on with one hand. He sighed and put on his suit coat, facing me. "You look great," I told him, smiling with some assurance.

He didn't look convinced but still nodded. "Thank you. As do you." He put his arm through mine and guided me down to the Great Room where the memorial service was being held. I held my breath, awaiting his reaction to all of my planning. He nodded, as if making his mind up about something before looking at me. "You did well," he complimented simply.

Because he was king now, we had to wait outside as our guests trickled in another entrance, all of them getting completely searched before coming inside. Some looked wary and I knew that they must have been here during the attack but others looked to overcome with grief to really care about the minor invasion of privacy inflicted upon them by the guards.

I started to wonder how many of these women I was seeing were members of the queen's Selection or even members of Maxon's extended family. I remembered some brief mention of Maxon's family in another country but I couldn't recall which country and what their position was there. I didn't think today was the day I was going to learn all of that though. I was confused over why Silvia hadn't taught me about them yet, though.

I craned my neck to get a better look at the people gathered inside, just to see if I knew anyone inside. Sure enough, a familiar pair of dark eyes met mine through the crack in the door I was standing behind. I waved to Elise, surprised to see that she was still here. But then I saw some of the other girls; Natalie, Tiny, Olivia, Tuesday, and Kriss. She had come back to the palace for this. I invited all of the surviving girls of the Selection but I never dreamt that any of them would actually show. Especially Kriss. She seemed to be avoiding looking in the direction of the door, unlike the other girls around her who kept pointing.

Remembering my poor fiancé standing next to me, I turned to him and said, "I hope you don't mind that I invited them."

He surprised me by smiling at me. "My mother told me that these girls mean a lot to you – they did for her. I can't fault you for wanting your friends close by." He paused, seeming to finally sense what I was trying to tell him before. "Oh. America, you are my choice and I couldn't be happier with it. If I wanted to marry any of the other girls, they would be standing here with me right now, okay? But I know that I don't want anyone else by my side today; I don't need anyone else by my side today."

I nodded and stood on my toes to give him a quick kiss as Gavril went on stage and told everyone to take their seats. "Ladies and gentlemen, please rise in welcome of King Maxon and Lady America Singer," he called, keeping his voice somber for the occasion. Though people had been calling me princess for days, I was still just Lady America. I wouldn't be princess until my coronation where I would actually become queen, skipping the princess stage altogether.

The doors in front of us opened completely and Maxon and I walked in, our arms linked. There were two chairs open in the front row just for us. It felt strange to be in a setting where Maxon wasn't set aside but Silvia told me that funerals and memorial services were not the place for making a show out of Ones.

Everyone sat down around us and as the service got under way, I no longer cared that I didn't know half of the people in the room. I no longer cared that Maxon and I literally had the weight of the world coming down on our shoulders. I just focused on the feel of his right hand clasped tightly in my left and keeping my tears at bay. The service was strangely similar to my father's. A brief biography was given, followed by a eulogy, with no opportunity for anyone else to speak.

It was peculiar to be divided into castes in life but then in death we were all the same. We were all loved and missed and we all had people that would miss us. We were all leaving something behind. My father left behind my family. Maxon's parents left him behind with a country to deal with.

Immediately following the service, Maxon and I were taken down to the basement of the palace where his parents would be buried. In the catacombs, there were reserved spots for everyone in the royal family. It was a bizarre sort of family tree. I walked past Gregory Illéa's final resting place and my new position in life seemed to get that much more real at the evidence of his life and what he had left behind.

The ornately carved caskets were waiting for us when we got there. Adele and her husband and eldest children came with us so we weren't alone and so that they too could grieve in some relative privacy. I couldn't help but notice the two spots beside the king and queen's; one with Maxon's name on it and his birth year and another with a blank plaque that would someday hold my name. I was barely engaged to Maxon. Seeing the holes reserved to be our final resting place seemed like too much for the time.

A priest sang a Latin prayer and blessed the caskets as they slid into the stone wall with resounding thuds. Guards saluted and then bolted them in. I blinked back the tears in mine and wrapped an arm around Maxon's waist as he put his arm around my shoulder. He wiped his own tears away with the back of his hand and shook his head as people slowly filed back upstairs for the small reception waiting for family members.

We were alone for a long time as I held on to Maxon down in the basement of our home. This was the last time he would see his parents. I finally looked up at Maxon and saw that he was no longer crying. The watch on his wrist told me that we had been down there for twenty minutes. "Maxon, we should go up and talk to our guests."

He frowned. "I have work to do. I'm still trying to sort through everything my father left me to do."

I paused, about to argue but I knew the last thing he needed at that point was a fight with me. "Okay," I relented. We slowly turned away and made our way up stairs, parting ways outside the music room. I walked in and fear swelled within me. I was in a room of mostly strangers. How was I supposed to be a hostess to these people?

Adele was my hero as she walked up to me and embraced me right away. "I don't know how to thank you for supporting my nephew," she said quietly, pulling away just to hold on to my hands. "You are just what he needs in this dark time."

"I am very sorry for the loss of your sister," I consoled respectfully, sensing that she and Amberly must have been close.

Adele nodded and one of her children ran up behind her. He must have been eight years old and I was freshly amazed at the vibrance of Adele's family as opposed to Queen Amberly's. "Lady America, this is my youngest, Coates," she introduced briefly, urging her son toward me.

I crouched down and smiled at him. "Hi Coates, I'm Lady America but you can just call me Ames."

He nodded shyly and then ran away. Adele smiled grimly at me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Tell that fiancé of yours that I want a proper visit from him before we leave and remind him that yes, he is busy, but there are some cousins that would love to see him."

I nodded. "I will," I promised. I warmed at the thought of Maxon being so desired among these kids and suddenly couldn't wait for the day he would be that way with our children. Elise and Kriss then approached me and Elise wrapped me in a warm hug, surprising me. She was always so reserved. "Thank you for coming," I told them both genuinely.

Kriss nodded and looked at Elise nervously before looking back to me. "America, I just want to congratulate you. I don't want things to be awkward between us or anything. Obviously I was upset the morning after the attack and I just wanted to leave before Maxon could tell me what I already knew; that you are his pick."

I hugged Kriss suddenly, surprising her. "I'm just sorry with the way it all ended Kriss. I was so rude to you the day I came back when we should have been better friends than ever."

"Well, America, I feel like I should tell you that I knew Maxon was going to propose to me that night of the rebel attack…and I was planning on saying no. I wasn't about to marry him because he couldn't have you."

I would have never guessed she would do that. "Kriss, you love Maxon…" I started but I had no idea what else to say.

Either way, she held up a hand to stop me. "I do. But you're in love with Maxon and he's in love with you. He would never be happy with me like he is with you. Especially with the way he was picking me. He was angry and heartbroken; he wasn't thinking rationally. I'm sure that within weeks he would be miserable because of his choice."

I nodded, part of me still scared of that side of Maxon I was exposed to. It was the Maxon raised in isolation in the midst of violence and aggression. I wasn't entirely convinced of what she was saying – Maxon would have stood by his choice no matter what – but I was flattered by her words. "Thanks so much Kriss."

"Call me if you need anything, okay?" I nodded in response and she walked away, leaving just me and Elise.

"Have you talked to the Newsomes yet?" she asked me.

I shook my head sadly. "But Maxon has, offering his sincerest apologies. We would visit them but if we visit them we have to visit everyone and we just don't have the time. Things are kind of crazy here right now."

Elise squeezed my shoulder sympathetically. "How's Maxon doing?"

I shrugged. "He's had better days," I answered vaguely, not wanting to disclose every dirty detail of the past week. "We both had but I guess it's almost a blessing in disguise that I lost my father a couple weeks ago because it means that we can grieve together."

"Well," Elise sighed, "you can call me anytime too. Us Elite need to stick together." She nudged me with her elbow and winked.

I smiled and looked around the room again, seeing that there were even more strangers here than I originally thought. It brought back painful memories of my own father's service where I didn't know half the people in attendance. Silvia, who had been floating around making sure that everything was running smoothly, approached me and said, "If you want to go spend time with your fiancé, I think everything is under control here."

"But our guests…"

"Will understand," she finished for me. "You two have been through a lot; I think everyone here wants you two to have a break before you really need to get to work."

I nodded and I didn't need to be told twice. I practically ran upstairs to Maxon's study and walked through, the guards bowing simply to me. I was finally starting to get used to the attention to the point where I barely noticed them.

Maxon was surprisingly alone in his study and he didn't appear to really be working. He was sitting in his big chair staring at a picture on his desk and I guessed it was one of his parents. I walked up behind him and perched on the arm of his chair, following his gaze to a picture of his mom and dad from a long time ago. They both looked young and with a heavy heart I realized it was a picture from their wedding.

"I don't have any family left," he whispered miserably.

I put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed his uninjured one. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you're actually wrong. You have me and you have my family."

He shook his head. "Does it stop hurting?"

"I'll let you know when it does." I put my face in his hair and breathed in the smell of his shampoo, so different from the smell of Aspen's homemade soap. "I love you," I breathed out, my voice muffled by his honey strands.

He nodded. "I love you too."

With the memorial service and the tumultuous first week after the attack behind us, the palace was able to settle into a new kind of normalcy. I could tell that Maxon was still trying to adjust to not having his parents around and with the last of the Selected leaving over the next few days, I started wondering what we were going to do when it was just the two of us. Surprisingly, it was Elise who was the last to leave.

"Please, feel free to call me whenever you need me," Elise reminded me as she hugged me goodbye. It felt strange seeing the girls go home. I felt like I would be going home too until I remembered that this was my new home.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would talk to Elise at least once-a-week. "Of course! As long as you promise to come to everything I invite you to! I need someone in my corner for these next few events," I said, my stomach churning at the thought of having to sell myself to all of these Ones that would be passing through our doors over the next few months.

She rolled her eyes. "You'll be fine. Maxon won't let you fall," she assured me. Her eyes flicked to the top of the staircase. "Speak of the devil…" she mumbled with a small smile.

I turned and saw Maxon descending them quickly. I couldn't help but smile at the sight of him, his hair bouncing as he basically ran down the steps, the sparkle in his eyes when they met mine…I still had trouble remembering in the morning that I was actually going to marry this man. When he got to us he wrapped Elise in a hug and whispered something in her ear that I didn't quite catch.

Whatever it was, it made her laugh. "Don't worry, I will."

"What?" I asked as Maxon stepped back to my side and put an arm around my shoulders.

Elise smiled mischievously. "It's a secret."

I rolled my eyes and turned to Maxon. "I do not like surprises. How many times do we have to go over this?"

He nodded and pretty much ignored me. "Please, Elise, don't be a stranger."

"Your girl here will make sure that never happens," she told him. A guard approached her and opened the big door behind her. "I guess this is it. Thank you, for everything," she said genuinely to both of us. Then she smiled and waved one last time before heading outside into the brilliant sunlight.

The bang of the door closing echoed through me and I realized that we were alone. It was just Maxon and I in this big palace. Well, not really, but I didn't have any of my friends with me and his family wasn't around to interrupt us on anything.

He must have been thinking the same thing because he looked down at me and said, "What do you say we find a safe room and make out?" He pressed his forehead to mine and I could feel his lips brush my chin.

"I'd love to, but I have a very important meeting to attend as do you, mister." I pulled away playfully, entwining my fingers with his.

He frowned. "Which meeting?"

"The wedding meeting," I told him slowly. "Did you forget?"

He looked horrified for a few seconds until he smiled brightly and shook his head. "No, I didn't forget." He held on to my hand as we walked upstairs to where we would be meeting Silvia, Stavros, Marlee, Mary, Lucy and some others who would be helping to plan the meeting.

The wing where the royal family's suites were set up also consisted of five conference rooms, all various sizes and all reserved for different purposes. The king and queen had their own conference rooms and then there was a military and strategizing room, a negotiation room, and another room for miscellaneous things. They all had similar setups despite the variation in sizes: a long, wooden table with seats on both sides and two chairs at one end of the table for the king and queen…Maxon and I.

As we walked in, everyone stood and bowed, something I wasn't quite used to yet. We took our seats, followed by everyone else. Silvia, who was seated closest to us, leaned forward with a bright smile. "Well, here we are with another royal wedding to plan. The first thing we have to decide is when you will be having the wedding. It is probably the most important aspect of it. It is the day you'll celebrate for the rest of your lives and will also be the day of your coronation due to the insinuating circumstances. Your Majesty, your parents had a fall wedding, as you know. Would you like to follow suit?" She looked at us expectantly.

Maxon and I exchanged a sheepish look, probably because we were both realizing that we had not talked about our wedding at all in the last week and a half. "Well…" I began hesitantly. I hoped we were both still thinking along the same lines. "I really like spring time."

He nodded. "I do as well," he agreed, looking back to Silvia.

"So, which month then?"

"May?" I asked, looking at Maxon again. He smiled and relaxed a bit, as if telling me to make all of the decisions. "May twenty-eighth?"

Silvia looked at the calendar in front of her and looked up at me frowning, "Princess, no offense, but weddings are typically on Fridays here, not Saturdays."

"It is a Friday," I said, confused.

Maxon sat up straighter, looking at me with a strange look. "You mean, this May?" he asked, voicing the question that was probably running through everyone's heads. "As in, five months from now?"

I nodded slowly, not sure why everyone wasn't catching on. "I've seen what the staff can do on two days' notice. Five months should be plenty of time. Besides, next May is too far away." I looked over at Maxon, hoping he'd understand that at least.

He smiled and shook his head. "May twenty-eighth sounds perfect," he said, not taking his eyes off of me. "What's next Silvia?" he asked, finally looking away from me to Silvia.

I risked a glance over at Marlee. She shook her head at me and winked.

Maxon and I went back to his study after the meeting, both of us feeling pretty confident about what we had gotten done. "So now we just need to decide on flowers, cake flavor and I have to get my dress done," I listed as I perched on the arm of a chair by his desk.

He nodded and smiled at me. "Are you hungry?" he asked, checking his watch.

"Starved. I'm sure dinner is ready, so do you want to head down to the dining room?" I asked him.

He froze, looking up at my before shaking himself out of it and returning his attention to the paper in front of him. "I figured we would eat up here. You know, it's cozier and then it gives the maids a break from having to get the dining room ready for us and everything."

I frowned, not understanding this reaction. We had been eating there for the last week or so with all of our guests, why didn't he want to eat in there now? The answer came to me as quickly as the question. It would be his first time eating in there without his parents. I was trying to push the grieving process along for him but this seemed like something I shouldn't argue. "Yeah, we can eat up here I guess." An idea popped in my head and I felt like it would be just the thing to make him feel better. "How about we both change into our pajamas and eat in your bedroom? We'll order breakfast food and have breakfast for dinner. Like breakfast in bed!"

He laughed and then looked up at me, obviously thinking I was kidding. "You're serious?"

"Yeah! My mom would always serve breakfast for dinner as a special treat for us whenever we were in a rough patch. It always brightened the mood."

He smiled and nodded slowly. "Okay. Then do you mind pushing it back a couple hours? Just so I can get some work done and spend the rest of the night in bed?"

"Sure," I agreed. "One of those things, I think, should be that meeting we've been meaning to have."

"Way ahead of you; they're on their way here now."

I clapped my hands enthusiastically as the doors to the study opened and a guard announced, "Mrs. Marlee Woodwork and Mr. Carter Woodwork."

Maxon and I shared a knowing look as Marlee and Carter walked in, both still in their nicer uniforms from the meeting. I patted Maxon's hand, telling him to go ahead and start talking. "Well, America and I have been talking about how we need to hire some new people. You know, new regime; new advisers. With that said, America is looking for an additional maid and I am as well so we would like you two to become two of our personal attendants."

Marlee's mouth fell open and Carter looked between Maxon and I like we were crazy. "And you would be doing this as Marlee and Carter, not Mallory and Calvin."

Carter slowly smiled and looked at Marlee before turning back to us. "This is…this is more than we could ever ask for."

I smiled at Maxon, knowing we had made the right decision. "Well good thing you're not asking; we're telling."

"Are you both serious?" Marlee asked, gripping the arms of the chair she was sitting in.

"We understand if you two need to time to talk it over; it'd be a big change for you both. You know, better salaries, personal living quarters on the fourth floor, spending most of your time with us…it's a lot to consider."

Marlee sprung out of her chair. "There's nothing to consider, we'll do it!"

Carter laughed at her as she ran around the desk to hug me. Maxon walked over to her husband and shook his hand. Carter still looked shell-shocked as Marlee turned to hug Maxon and I hugged Carter. "This is wonderful!" he exclaimed, eventually reigning Marlee in and taking her hand. "Thank you both so much."

We both smiled at them as Maxon answered, "It's our pleasure."

Later that night, Maxon and I were in bed with the breakfast tray cast aside, crumbs being the only thing left on it. We were in the middle of an aggressive thumb war when Maxon asked, "So how did this whole breakfast for dinner thing start in the Singer house?"

I smiled to myself at the fond memory, concentrating on keeping my thumb from being trapped underneath his. "It was just after a bad Christmas for us. Gerad was just a baby and with Mom having to take care of him day and night, we hadn't been able to take in as much money. I mean, I was only getting to the age where I could perform and May definitely wasn't there yet; she was only seven. And on top of all of that, my grandfather had just died from a heart attack."

I stopped, pain tugging at my heart. I shook my head and continued, "Dad and I were in charge of cooking dinner and when we looked in our refrigerator, we noticed that soon everything would be spoiled so we decided that we had to do something with the milk and the eggs. He suggested that we make pancakes and eggs for dinner. It sounded ludicrous but fun so we started making the batter for pancakes and Dad was just making a mess; he was never a good cook. We were yelling and laughing and eventually Kenna and Kota noticed and came out to join us.

"Kota kept dropping the eggs on the floor and Kenna was getting flour everywhere. It was easy for us to forget about the fact that we were freezing and barely had any presents for Christmas…by the time we were done cooking we had wasted so much food and we all expected Mom to be mad but she just laughed at the mess and kissed my dad. From then on, whenever things got bad, it was Mom and Dad's quickest solution to everything." As I came out of the memory, I noticed that our thumbs had stopped moving. "I know it sounds silly…"

Maxon cut me off. "It sounds wonderful. That's the kind of thing I wished I could have had with my family."

"Surely there were times where you all had fun together."

His eyes rolled from me to a corner of the room as he thought about it. "Okay, there was this one time…Daphne and her family were visiting and Father was always more civil when we had guests, even pleasant at times. I was still young, probably a teenager. Well, Daphne and I ran out into the gardens and she dared me to climb to the top of this big apple tree we have. I told her that we should race. Not surprisingly, I won and made it to the top before her but when I looked down I saw that she was on the ground, crying.

"Me being the hero, I slid down the tree and checked on her. She had cut her arm on the bark and it was bleeding so I took her back to our parents and her mom and dad flipped out. I was expecting for my father to do the same but he just laughed. I was so shocked and I think Mom was too that he was actually not upset about it all. He just brushed it off that we were being kids. Meanwhile, Daphne's mother was running around yelling about antibiotics and tetanus shots even though it was barely a scrape and by then it had stopped bleeding. We laughed about it for days." He laughed and smiled at the memory. "It's one of the last times I remember being happy with my parents."

Regret leaked into his voice and I rubbed my thumb over his hand gently, abandoning the game to comfort him. "Do you have any other stories?" I asked, genuinely curious. I never really cared about the royal family when I was little and paid little attention to them whenever they were in the news.

With that, Maxon started regaling me with tales from his childhood. The story of him getting a puppy for his seventh birthday and naming it Kibbles and how apparently it wreaked havoc in the palace for the ten years it was alive. The story of him accidentally setting his mom's favorite book on fire because he was seeing if leather did indeed burn. The story of him almost burning the palace to the ground because he wanted to make his parents breakfast in bed for their anniversary. All of the stories were happy and full of mischief and I wondered how he had ended up here, alone and abused by his father.

As the night went on, the stories grew more serious. I started contributing by telling him about times when my father got into arguments with Twos because they insisted that he did a poor job or when Kota would steal all of my father's clay as a child, just to make tiny figurines for a girl he liked in town. Then I started telling him about winters we spent in the dark or in the cold. Vacations that were promised but never happened. Hunger that threatened to overwhelm of us in the heat of summer. The hurricane that came through one fall and flooded half of my house.

Maxon started opening up more too. Eventually, his stories shifted to his relationship with his father. "I spent the summer of my twelfth birthday in France with Daphne's family and when I got home, things were different. My father was suddenly holding me accountable for so much more than my schoolwork. He started giving me more responsibilities and taking me to his meetings. He was stricter, more rigid and callous.

"He had always been a firm believer in spanking because his parents were. I didn't really think much of it when he started hitting me again. It was when he got more violent that I started getting scared." He shook his head and took a deep breath, looking down at his lap. "I was thirteen, the first time he caned me. I didn't see it coming at all. He simply called me into his study in a few days after Christmas and said that he was disappointed for the way I had been acting with my cousins. I wasn't supposed to play with them and I had also accidentally let it slip about a new finance plan we were putting into place.

"I was so shocked after it happened but for some reason I couldn't tell anyone. I felt like if I told anyone, he would just retaliate even more. I also knew that if I just acted like nothing happened, he would too. So I went on, keeping it a secret. The first few times it was really hard and my wounds healed slowly because I didn't know how to really treat them. It got better with practice." He laughed darkly.

I was cold, listening to his confession. Goose bumps covered my arms and legs underneath my robe. I slowly shook my head. "I don't blame you for not telling anyone. You were doing what you thought was best."

He sighed. "Honestly, there were times where I considered sending you home because I was scared of what my father could do to you but I could never think of any other excuse. That was one of many indications that you were definitely the one for me; I didn't feel the need to protect any of the girls like I did with you. Granted, they didn't put themselves out there quite like you did but I don't know. I wasn't about to send one of them home because I feared their safety."

"You were probably relieved when I found out then."

He shrugged. "More or less. I at least knew then that I could avoid an awkward conversation with you before our wedding night but I was also more fearful of the fact that if my father found out that you knew…he probably would have killed you and put me as close to death as possible. Things would have gotten very bad for the both of us."

I brought my knees up close to my chest and played with a loose string in the quilt on his bed. I couldn't imagine that state of living in constant fear of my own father. I tried to put myself in his shoes and it left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach. "You're safe now," I whispered, begging for him to look at me.

"By default," he added quietly. He shook his head. "So now you know all of it."

"Thank you for telling me."

He shrugged again. "I don't want any more secrets between the two of us," he explained shortly. I didn't miss the hint of doubt in his voice and what he was implying. "America, you have my heart, you know that. If there's anything else you need to tell me, now is the time. Nothing you say will make me not love you."

It felt like a rock settled in my stomach. With my secret about Aspen out in the open, I knew we would eventually have to have this conversation. And there was also the secret about my father… "Maxon, if I could go back and tell you about Aspen on my first day here, I would."

"It's water under the bridge now. I happened to hear that he is rather smitten with your maid Lucy so I'll be willing to give him a chance as a friend." I looked up at him at that, shocked that he had decided that. "We've been looking for someone new for being the head of security and I'm sure that with a extra little grooming, he would be just right for the job. Seeing as he can't be a real guard now."

"Really?" I asked, not believing what he was saying.

Maxon smiled sideways. "He's obviously very loyal and that's something I look for in my personal staff."

I threw my arms around him. I couldn't believe it; I didn't have to lose my best friend after all. Aspen would be right here in the palace all the time now. "Thank you so much," I squealed into the skin of his neck.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me away enough to lean down to kiss me. "I love you. I want you comfortable here."

"All I need for that is you," I told him, looking up into his warm brown eyes. He flipped us so that he was hovering over me on his bed, kissing my neck. I groaned and moved my hands to the hem of his shirt, pulling it off.

He buried his head in my cleavage and sighed. "Thank the lord our wedding is this may. I don't know how I would be able to wait a year and a half for you."

I smiled at his words and then sucked in a breath as he trailed kisses down my stomach. "Me neither."

Just a fluffy chapter, tying up some loose ends before I start jumping ahead in time. Thanks kingsofsummer01 for the awesome review! don't forget that you guys can send me some ideas of stuff you want to see as a one-shot and i'll most likely do it (leave the unicorns at home, folks). I'm done school so I should be updating again soon. and if you guys are reading Taking the One, I haven't stopped posting; I've just been super busy! don't lose faith!

anyway, reviews would wonderful!