Love Isn't as Easy as the Books

Part 3

 Freen got up bright and early, just like she had every day for a very long time, despite how much she wanted to sleep. However, on the second floor of the hotel, Becky was cursing the blinds that didn't close all the way and curled up into a tighter ball next to Fluffy.

The rich woman was out of her room just as the sun was dawning. She was one of the first in line for the hotel's coffee station. After what most people would consider too much coffee and a bagel with three packets of cream cheese, Freen was as ready for the day as she'd ever be.

The GAP Publishing House meeting was set for nine, which gave Freen a little over an hour to start by the office and do some checking up on things.

Of course the actual business was boring and tedious and completely ineffectual at taking her mind off of the meeting before her.

Freen had helped negotiate hostile takeovers of billion dollar companies before. And here she was, nervous at the prospect of being an investor in a mom-and-pop publishing house that was the home to her favorite romance novelist. Maybe it was because she slept with said novelist or someone very, very close to her.

The publisher was barely even worth ten million dollars! Freen had no real reason to be this nervous.

Instead she arrived fifteen minutes early to the tiny office of GAP. It comprised of a single floor in a New York high rise, it was altogether cramped, cluttered, filled with papers and books and desks crammed into tiny offices and it smelled of old paper and ink.

Something stirred deep in Freen's chest, near where she assumed her soul would be if she had ever been accused of having one (she never was).

That feeling was telling her something very strange. It felt like a home. It felt like she had just stepped into someone's house, a close friend's residence. Her mind quickly shied away from that all encompassing, dark feeling the one that she dared not even think, not give a silent voice to the thought: this felt like her home, if there was ever such a thing. Memories pressed in along with this feeling, this crushing, enveloping feeling. Memories of happier times, of people long gone, and the dream she had of herself as a better person.

And for all of her incredible wealth Freen would have left it all behind to hold on to that feeling, that strange, surreal feeling, that feeling of home.

But it was fleeting, as a teenage girl with a side bun approached her.

"Are you Miss Sarocha?" she asked.

"Yes," Freen said as she offered her hand.

The teenager took it warily. "My parents will be ready shortly. Do you need something to drink? Water?"

"Do you have any coffee?"

"Yeah. Hey Lovely, go tell mom and dad their meeting is here," she called to her bored looking younger sister who immediately took off at a full sprint into the deep, paper labyrinth of the office, rustling papers as she went.

The teenager gave her the cup of fairly decent, but piping hot coffee. "I'm Jin by the way."

"I'm Freen Sarocha, but I'm sure you knew that already."

"Why are you here?" Jin asked bitingly.

Freen sputtered slightly. "I was... I uh... it's complicated?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to take over our company? My grandfather started this publisher and we aren't just going to give it up."

Before the investor could respond and tall balding man with a fairly impressive beard and a chipper looking woman came up to Freen.