Page 1 of Never Give Up

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MAYA

Everythingin my brain screams to keep my mouth shut before I utter words I can’t take back.

Brian Miller, the only man with the power to break me, wears the same expressionless mask he puts on when dealing with suspects.

That expression tells me everything.

It cracks my carefully built resolve.

My palms grow clammy and my fingers tremble against the table like I am drumming a tune without a name, yet I can’t look away from the man who holds my heart in his hand.

“Please, Maya.” Brian’s words betray the blank stare in his eyes, thick with emotion for a fraction of a second. “Don’t.”

I touch Brian’s arm, needing… Shit, I don’t know what I need, but I can’t let it end like this.

His “don’t” speaks volumes.

Don’t ruin this.

Don’t say something that can’t be taken back.

Don’t change the status quo.

But keeping everything to myself isn’t working. It’s slowly eating through my soul until even working with him is becoming almost unbearable.

And our friendship?

I need that to exist after I tell him.

No. That’s a lie. I need more than friendship. I need him to tell me how he feels. To confirm that it isn’t all in my head. But if he doesn’t, if I’ve built everything between us like a house of cards during a hurricane, then…

I swallow the rock in my throat and gather the tiny bit that’s left of my courage.

His shifting expression steals my last piece of confidence. His dim eyes break my thinning hope. The unspoken affection I’ve held on to in the dark night when I pretend—fantasize—I might mean as much to him as he means to me.

His blue eyes hold nothing but regret.

Tears sting and blur my vision, but I blink them back. Crying isn’t an option. “Brian—”

“If you say it, we can’t go back.” He cuts me off. “Right now, we can stay where we are. Where it’s safe.” Brian’s promise is almost worse than the rejection on his face. “But if you say the words, the ones swimming in your eyes, there’s nothing left. Don’t you want to keep it safe?”

I don’t want safe. I want—

“I want more.”

There.

I say them. Three little words that give him the power to destroy me, not that he even needs them.

“I can’t give you anything, Maya.” Brian brushes his fingers down my face, sliding a strand of my long hair out of the way as his eyes finally find mine. “I thought you knew that. That you understood… I’m not the one for you.”

We’ve never done anything but talk and share in the misery that’s torn apart both of our lives.

But he’s been the only one to see me.

“There can’t be anything between us, Maya.” His words cut through the fog overtaking my brain as his touch lingers.

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