Love Isn't as Easy as the Books

End

Freen and Becky spent four weeks on the not-so-tiny private island just the two of them, the sun, the ocean, the sand, and Fluffy. Even pale Freen developed some color, and Becky, as Freen put it, was a bronzed goddess that would give Athena envy.

When the returned Freen went back to work and Becky went to therapy for the first time in her life.

It was one thing to talk about her troubles with Freen, someone she knew and loved, but a complete stranger was something else. But like anything worth doing, it took time and effort and it was not easy. Eventually she opened up and truly started to work on getting better.

It took almost two more years but Freen Sarocha had put Future Industries back on the map. All of the scandals, the litigations, the terrorist attacks, were all long in the past. She pushed, pulled, dragged, brought her father's company into the modern era and was widely held as one of the most progressive companies on the planet.

As Freen and Becky's relationship deepened and strengthened, Marsha Blackwood suddenly seemed to be writing a whole lot of lesbian romance fiction much to the delight of some of her readers and to much eye rolling from Freen who was also credited as Blackwood's "beautiful and sensuous muse".

Becky, however, hadn't written under her own name since Epilogues came out two years before.

So every time Freen had to remind Becky to eat or found her dancing in her office chair as she smashed keys on the type writer, she just assumed it was more Blackwood novels.

It came as quite a surprise to her when all of a sudden Becky presented her with a freshly bound novel.

"What's this?" Freen asked.

"I finished my new book," Becky said. "And I wanted your approval of it first."

"You've never needed my approval before," she responded skeptically, hands brushing the perfect cover. "Not that I don't love the advanced copies of your Blackwood books, but why now?"

"Well I just remember how pissed you got at me last time."

Freen looked down at the fairly thick book. The cover was all white, almost stark in its plainness. The only thing on the cover was a title in gold, "Love Isn't as Easy as the Books Make it Seem". A book mark occupied a space at the end of the book.

She opened the cover and read the opening paragraph.

"Hayley found herself in the airport bookstore desperately looking for something to read. She'd finished the book she brought with her and her massive ebook collection was not inspiring. The romance section was calling to her. If Hayley had a secret vice is was her love of harlequin romance novels. One title, which looked new considering it dominated one entire shelf, caught her eye. 'The Writer and The CEO'"

"You little shit," Freen said with a little smile. "You wrote about us. Again!"

"We've been together for like four years now! You should know me better than that!" Becky retorted with her little puckish grin.

Freen smiled. "I'm just kidding. I don't mind anymore."

"Well I wasn't entirely honest. It's not actually done," Becky said, shuffling her feet nervously. "I don't know how to end the story. I was hoping you could help me out with that."

Looking up from flipping through the beginning of the book, Freen looked up at Becky. "How do you think it should end?"

"You tell me," Becky said, urging Freen back to the book.

Freen flipped some more pages until she opened to the bookmark, which wasn't actually a bookmark. It was a long ribbon attached to a simple little silver ring with a small diamond on the top.

"Well?"

"Becky..."

"Yeah?"

"I..."

"Yeah?"

"Want you to get down on your knees and do this the right way. I want to hear you say it," Freen smiled widely and tried to keep her happy tears and laughter and bubbling joy under control.

Becky hastily descended to one knee and asked, "Marry me Freen Sarocha?"

"Of course you dork!"

Two months after Becky and Freen were married and six months after Becky's second book under her real name was published the US Army Antarctic Research Base received an anonymous donation of two crates of books. One was Marsha Blackwood's The Warrior and the Conqueror and the other was Love Isn't as Easy as the Books Make it Seem.

Having already read everything to read in the base, Kuvira had no choice but to read both of them.