"Does it have to be like this? I mean, can you not just tell them that you like me—"
"NO!" Ariana refused so harshly that Nicolai stepped down the bed. He looked at her with a stunned expression on his face.
"You didn't even let me finish what I wanted to say."
"I know what you were going to say, Nicolai, and the answer is no," Ariana stated with a hint of panic in her eyes. She thought of her past and the present and suddenly felt suffocated. Her entire life was full of blemishes, and she didn't want to lose Nicolai too.
If she was to tell her parents they would try to pull her away from Nicolai, Ariana was not ready for that conversation yet.
Not with them, nor with Nicolai.
She felt disgusted by her own skin; what were the chances that Nicolai would not feel the same? He was with her because he felt that she was untouched, unblemished. What if Nicolai was to find out that the woman he adored was long tainted?