Romance readers treasure happy endings. Virtue (however you define it) is rewarded with true love and happiness.

In other words, a romance reader gives their time to an entertainment that confirms their moral view of the world as being a better place for having in it people who love, who risk intimacy and emerge triumphant.

A romance novel celebrates a passionate hero/heroine who learns who they are, what (or who) is important to them, and then, commits themselves to that cause/person.

Every great story is a quest. In romance novels, the holy grail is love.