The waiting room brimmed with young women. Ribbons at their sleeves, silk reticules clenched in pale hands, eyes bright and watchful.
He’s here.
Whispers fluttered like wings, handkerchiefs twisted, and fans tapped against gloved palms. All of them are waiting for the same person.
Maisie didn’t need to ask who.
Doctorin speFaivish Blattner. Almost a doctor, already Father’s pride. Her love.
As always, the women followed him. They didn’t know the taste of him in the dark, or the way his breath had broken across her skin when he swore tomorrow would be theirs. They hadn’t felt his hand steady her waist or the promise in his gaze. Yet every hour that tomorrow slipped further away, Maisie feared Father had other plans—plans that might send him out of her reach.
Through the half-open door, she caught his profile: tall, shoulders squared from habit, his voice a quiet balm to some nervous patient. His hair caught the sun slanting through the window, casting a glow she resented the others seeing.
But then his eyes found hers. And in that look, there was nothing of a doctor, nothing of Father’s apprentice. It was the look of a man holding a secret. Their secret.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, the practice swelled like this—queues spilling into the street, chatter buzzing through the waiting room. And still, amid all that noise, Faivish always found a way. A glance that lingered too long. Fingers brushing hers when no one noticed. Sparks she carried away like contraband.
Maisie twisted the fringe of her shawl tight around her fingers, watching as he coaxed a frightened boy with some quiet jest, calmed a man twice his size with nothing more than a hand at the shoulder. She knew those hands in another way—the silent reassurance pressed into her skin when no one was watching.
Then suddenly his head turned. His gaze caught hers full on, direct as a struck match. His mouth quirked—just a sliver, enough to set warmth racing down her spine—before he vanished back through the door.
Too late for them, she thought with a glance at the women waiting.He is mine.And she was the only one who knew his laugh when it spilled out unguarded, bright and boyish, as if the world were kinder than it seemed.
The truth pressed at her ribs. Women could not be doctors. Discovery meant marriage at once—something she wanted with an ache that left her breathless, but not if it cost him the future he’d worked for. So she stayed at Father’s side, a nurse with her tray, her secrets tucked between teacups and polished mirrors.
Tea. That was her excuse to go back to him.
A few minutes later, she steadied the tray with both hands, jasmine scent curling upward. The waiting women’s shawls brushed against her as she passed, eyes flicking with envy at her effortless entrance. They didn’t know he had already chosen her. That every time she set tea in his hand, she was not only serving, but claiming her place beside him.
The treatment room was bright with the smell of eucalyptus and lavender. Father glanced up, silver hair glinting under the lamplight,while a patient dabbed delicately at her lips.
Maisie set the tray aside. But her gaze went to Faivish, as it always did.
He dried his hands with calm care, the faint tug at his mouth betraying a warmth meant only for her.
The patient lingered, reluctant to leave. “And Dr. Blattner.”
Her father’s eyes flicked—Faivish, then her, then back again. The heft of it made her breath falter.
He knows. Or suspects.
I have to tell him—
Not now.
The patient lingered in the doorway, a woman of thirty or so, her smile just a little too eager. “And Dr. Blattner.”
Faivish inclined his head, that faint curl at his mouth betraying no more than polite acknowledgment. “Onlyin spe,” he said—soon to be. The title rolled easily from him now. His diploma was only ink and parchment away.
The woman’s gloved fingers reached for his. “Vienna is fortunate to have you. Such skilled hands.” Her gaze clung to him longer than courtesy allowed.
He touched her hand only briefly, bowing away like contact meant little. “You are kind, madam.” He used the same measured tone he usually did with everyone but her.
Maisie knew the difference. Knew it in the way his eyes, after that small exchange, lifted across the room until they caught hers.
Heat shot up her throat. That glance was not for the woman in the chair. It was for her alone. And in it lay everything unspoken—the brush of his lips in the alley, the promise of tomorrow, the secret that tied them together so tightly she could hardly breathe.
Her pulse stumbled. She willed her hands steady as she adjusted the tray on the side table. Steady, steady. She could not let the tremor show. Not here, not in front of Father.
