Chapter 199: I Like You
Evening. Richard's finger twitched.
Anastasia noticed.
"Richard?" Her voice carried a spark of hope.
Richard's lashes fluttered a few times before his eyes slowly opened.
His vision was still blurry.
As his senses returned, the first thing he saw was a face streaked with tears yet lit with joy.
He parted his lips, wanting to call her name, but his throat was too dry to make a sound.
"You're finally awake!" Anastasia's tears spilled over in relief as she quickly pressed the call button by the bed.
The doctor arrived promptly and ran a series of tests on Richard.
"The patient's recovery is progressing well. He's out of danger now. What he needs next is rest."
After the doctor and nurse left, only the two of them remained in the room.
Anastasia removed his oxygen mask and carefully helped him sit up, bringing a glass of water to his lips.
"How do you feel? Are you in pain anywhere?" Her voice was gentle.
Richard gazed at her, drinking in every detail of her face as if memorizing it.
He summoned what little strength he had to lift his hand, reaching for her cheek.
Anastasia immediately caught his hand and pressed it against her face.
Richard looked at her, guilt heavy in his voice. "I'm sorry. I only managed to save one dress."
Anastasia's heart clenched.
He was this badly hurt, and the first thing he did when he woke up was apologize to her.
He'd already done more than enough.
"You fool." She shook her head as tears dripped onto the back of his hand. "The studio can be rebuilt. The dresses can be remade. As long as you're okay, that's all that matters."
Watching her cry for him made Richard's chest ache with an almost painful fullness.
"Anastasia."
He spoke her name with unprecedented seriousness in his eyes.
"I'm in love with you."
"I shut down your store because I saw you with Caspian. I was jealous."
"I had you watched because I was worried about you. I was afraid something would happen to you."
"I know my methods were controlling, obsessive. I hurt you. I almost lost you."
He poured it all out in one breath.
For the first time, he laid bare the deepest feelings in his heart.
Anastasia leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.
"Richard, I'm in love with you too."
Those words rippled through Richard like waves across still water.
The light in his dark eyes seemed ready to pull her in completely.
He wanted to hold her, to kiss her.
To make her a part of him.
But the sharp pain and weakness in his body kept him immobile. All he could do was look at her with burning intensity.
"Say it again."
Anastasia felt her heart break and swell at the same time seeing him like this.
She leaned close to his ear and repeated each word clearly.
"Richard, I'm in love with you."
Her warm breath brushed his ear, and Richard's body went rigid.
Then joy swept through him like a wave.
From this moment on, his life finally had color.
The atmosphere in the room was perfect—until a commotion erupted at the door.
A middle-aged man flanked by several bodyguards in black and a lawyer stormed up to the entrance, blocking it completely.
"Anastasia! Get out here!"
It was Keith.
After spending weeks trying to save the company—selling off their last properties, borrowing from everyone—he'd barely made a dent. With the Stafford Family on the brink of bankruptcy, he'd placed all the blame squarely on Anastasia's shoulders.
Wayne immediately stepped forward to block them.
"This is a VIP ward. Unauthorized personnel aren't allowed inside."
"I'm her father! You can't stop me from seeing my own daughter!"
Keith turned to the reporters who'd already caught wind of the scene and rushed over, crying out dramatically, "Everyone, look! This ungrateful daughter—now that she's found someone rich, she's disowned her own family!"
"She had her mother and brother thrown in jail, she put her sister in the hospital where she's still unconscious, and now she won't even see her own father! What kind of world is this?"
The lawyer Keith had brought stepped forward on cue, addressing the cameras with righteous indignation.
"According to the law, even adopted children have a duty to support their parents. Miss Anastasia Stafford's current behavior constitutes abandonment. We demand that she immediately cease her persecution of the Stafford Family, issue a public apology, and fulfill her legal obligations!"
Camera flashes went off continuously, capturing Keith's grief-stricken face in stark detail.
[Wait, is this another plot twist?]
[Rich family drama is so confusing. Who's actually in the wrong here?]
[I mean, pushing your parents this far does seem a bit much, doesn't it?]
Anastasia's expression turned cold.
She hadn't expected the Stafford Family to twist the truth so shamelessly.
She started to stand, but Richard pressed her hand down.
He gave Wayne a look.
Wayne understood immediately.
Instead of arguing with Keith, he simply took out his phone and connected it to the TV in the hallway.
The next second, a series of videos and document screenshots appeared clearly before everyone.
"These are the complete records and legal evidence we've compiled of Miss Anastasia Stafford's blood donations and bone marrow transplants for Miss Renee Stafford over the past eighteen years."
"Total blood donations exceeding eight thousand milliliters, two bone marrow transplants, causing permanent, irreversible damage to Miss Anastasia Stafford's body."
"Not only did the Stafford Family fail to provide any medical compensation, they repeatedly used 'the debt of raising her' as an excuse to extract over five million dollars in cash and assets from Miss Anastasia Stafford."
"As for the so-called duty of support—Mr. Keith Stafford, when you and your wife used an underage adopted daughter as a living blood bank, draining every ounce of value from her, what parental obligations did you fulfill?"
The lawyer Keith had brought went white as a sheet when he saw the legal evidence on screen.
In all his years of practice, he'd never encountered such shameless clients.
This wasn't a family dispute.
This was eighteen years of abuse and exploitation.
He removed his glasses, walked up to Keith, and slapped a termination letter against his chest.
"Mr. Stafford, I cannot accept this case. This isn't about protecting your rights. This is criminal."
Without another word, the lawyer pushed through the crowd and left quickly.
Just then, a piercing scream came from the back of the crowd.
"Anastasia! You bitch! I'm going to kill you!"
Renee, still in her psychiatric hospital gown, had escaped.
Hair wild, eyes crazed, she gripped a fruit knife and broke through the crowd, charging straight toward the room.
But her target wasn't Anastasia.
It was the dress—set aside in its protective garment bag.
"If I can't have it, neither can you! I'm going to destroy it! Destroy the thing you care about most!"
She shrieked, face contorted, raising the knife to plunge it down.