BURNING PATIENT
Copyright @ 2026 by EN. STEPH. NORA
All rights reserved.
No parts of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations in book reviews and certain other noncommercial used permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
BURNING PATIENT
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DEDICATION🌺
For every woman who has ever stood at the edge of something real and called it a bad idea.
And for the ones still running — you will get there.
When you do, he will still be there.
He always was.
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CONTENTS
Author Note
Updates Schedule
Content Warning
Playlist
Prologue-Cade
Chapter 1-Nadia
Chapter 2-Nadia
Chapter 3-Nadia
Chapter 4-Nadia
Chapter 5-Nadia
Chapter 6-Nadia
Chapter 7-Cade
Chapter 8-Nadia
Chapter 9-Cade
Chapter 10-Nadia
Chapter 11-Nadia
Chapter 12-Cade
Chapter 13-Nadia
Chapter 14-Nadia
Chapter 15-Cade
Chapter 16-Nadia
Chapter 17-Nadia
Chapter 18-Cade
Chapter 19-Nadia
Chapter 20-Cade
Chapter 21-Nadia
Chapter 22-Nadia
Chapter 23-Cade
Chapter 24-Cade
Chapter 25-Nadia
Chapter 26-Nadia
Chapter 27-Cade
Chapter 28-Nadia/Cade
Chapter 29-Nadia
Chapter 30-Nadia
Chapter 31-Nadia
Chapter 32-Cade
Chapter 33-Nadia/Cade
Chapter 34-Cade
Chapter 35-Nadia
Epilogue-Cade
About the Author
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AUTHOR’S NOTE!
Thank you so much for choosing to read BURNING PATIENT. I’m so excited to finally share Nadia and Cade journey with you.
If you enjoy the story, I would absolutely appreciate if you would take out of your day and leave a review informing other’s reader of thought on “BURNING PATIENT” and give me the motivation to keep going and never give up on my writing journey.
I hope you fall in-love with Nadia and Cade the way I did especially Nadia because a lot of people has been in her shoe before and understand those type of people..
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UPDATES SCHEDULE!
I aim to post two chapters every couple of days, though sometimes a day might slip by. Life can get busy, especially as I’m balancing this story alongside my responsibilities as a nursing student and Digital marketer.
I will do my best to keep the updates coming while managing exams, hospital rotations, and everything else on my plate.
Please try and be patience and give me all the support you can— it will really means a lot to me.
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CONTENT WARNING
BURNING PATIENT.
This book contains the following. Reader discretion is advised:
Explicit sexual content (multiple steamy scenes) · Intense jealousy and possessive behavior from MMC · Forced proximity · Enemies-to-lovers tension · Emotionally avoidant FMC · Morally complex characters · Power imbalance (workplace dynamic) · Strong language throughout · Emotional walls and self-sabotage · Toxic push-pull relationship dynamics · Love triangle (red herring) · Anxiety and fear of vulnerability · A man who is quietly, devastatingly, on fire
This is an adult romance. All characters are consenting adults. If any of the above are sensitive topics for you, please read with care.
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BURNING PATIENT — PLAYLIST
1. Liability — Lorde
Opening credits. Nadia alone. The life she built to protect herself.
2. From Eden — Hozier
The tension before anything happens. Something dangerous is growing.
3. Mess Is Mine — Vance Joy
Cade's quiet certainty. He already knows. She does not yet
4. Ivy — Taylor Swift
Vermont. The dark kitchen. The almost.
5. Jealous — Labrinth
The kiss. The morning she leaves. His ceiling at dawn.
6. Saturn — SZA
The push and pull. Three encounters. Running out of wall.
7. All I Want — Kodaline
The letter. Everything she cannot unfeel.
8. Burn — Ellie Goulding
His patience breaking. Her driving north.
9. Traitor — Olivia Rodrigo
The cold kitchen. What she did. What it cost.
10. Easy On Me — Adele
The empty restaurant. Everything finally said.
11. Coming Home — Leon Bridges
7am. She knocks. She stays.
12. Turning Page — Sleeping At Last
The morning after. She is still there. He is home.
“You can find the complete playlist on” (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7v3iMebKXanuQ62Rxpin2R?si=JnOMqRPCQOGv1QMjXLuwYg)
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PROLOGUE — "What Patience Looks Like"
Cade's POV
I am not a patient man.
People who work for me would tell you otherwise. They would say I am steady, controlled, the kind of chef who does not raise his voice in a kitchen because I never need to. They are right about that. But they are describing discipline. Discipline and patience are not the same thing.
Patience is what I have with Nadia Voss.
I have watched her for two years. Not the way that sounds — not quietly, from a distance, pining. I am present every day. I make myself known. I push back on every wall she builds because I know, the way you know things you cannot explain, that the walls are not the truth of her. I have seen the truth of her in unguarded moments — the way she laughs when something genuinely surprises her, the way she handles the new floor staff, the way she looks at the city from the restaurant window on slow Tuesday nights like she is waiting for it to give her something.
I know what she is waiting for.
I know because I am waiting for the same thing.
She is going to make me work for this. She is going to run and retreat and find seventeen reasons why this is a terrible idea. I know all of this. I have always known all of this.
I am still here.
That is what patience looks like. Not stillness. Not silence. Not waiting quietly in a corner hoping to be noticed.
It looks like a man who has made his decision and is simply waiting for the woman he made it about to make hers.
She will.
I am burning patient.
