Page 28 of Ruthless Grace

Gia walks straight to the center of the room, turning her back to the bed as I set her surgical bag and weekend luggage down on the velvet bench at the foot of the mattress.

She reaches up, unfastening the pearls from her throat, and sets them carefully on the nightstand beside her ring. Then her hands move to the spine of her dress.

A long line of silk-covered buttons runs down the back of her structured ivory gown. She manages the first five before her shoulders stiffen in frustration.

“Need help, principessa?” I ask, stepping up behind her.

“I can manage,” she says, her fingers straining against the tight lace over her shoulder blades.

“You can’t reach the middle twelve,” I say smoothly, stepping into her space.

My shadow falls completely over her. The scent of her, sweet night-blooming jasmine, dark chicory, and the clean, sharp tang of sterile hospital soap, hits my lungs like a physical strike.

I don’t wait for her permission. I reach out, my large, calloused hands coming to rest against her waist.

Gia goes instantly rigid.

“Don’t touch me, Luca,” she whispers, her voice dropping into that quiet, dangerous register she uses when she’s issuing a warning in an OR.

“I don’t bite, principessa,” I murmur against the shell of her ear, my thumb hooking into the top loop of her button line. “Matilde’s done for the night. I sent the rest of the staff across the river. So it’s my hands, or you sleep in the gown—unless you’d prefer I call Gianni in to work your buttons.”

Her jaw locks so tight a muscle spasms beneath her ear.

Principessa. Every time I spit the word at her, it’s a whip: a reminder that under all her surgical steel and haughty Santoro pride, she’s just a spoiled mafia brat whose bloodline ran out of credit. A princess stripped of her crown and handed over to the enemy.

“My buttons. Nothing else,” she says, turning her back to me.

I slide the first silk button free. Then the second. My knuckles brush against the warm, exposed skin of her spine. A shiver ripples through her: tiny, involuntary, and instantly suppressed.

I work my way down the spine of the gown, releasing the heavy ivory lace button by button. With every inch of silk that parts, her skin is laid bare to the cool air of the room.

When the last button pops free, the heavy dress falls open, pooling around her heels on the dark mahogany floorboards.

My breath hitches in my throat. The dark, calculating Don in my head goes completely, terrifyingly silent.

I’ve seen Giada Santoro for years across war tables, church vestibules, and funeral courtyards, always wrapped in boxy, oversized green cotton or structured dark wool suits that conceal her body like armor.

Standing before me now in only a sheer, midnight-silk corset and high-waisted lace, she is a revelation of pure female warmth.

She isn’t thin like the high-society women who parade around the Country Club. She is lush. A full, breathtaking hourglass: soft, rounded hips that flare from a narrow waist, full breasts spilling over the lace of her cups, and smooth, pale thighs that look like they were carved for a man to sink his hands into. Her skin is warm under the chandelier light, soft and unmarked.

Dante Santoro traded a goddess to clear a debt I invented, and he has no idea what he threw away.

“Satisfied, Valentino?” Gia asks, stepping out of the pooled lace. She turns around to face me, placing her hands on her hips, completely unbothered by her lack of clothing. Her eyes are bright with pure defiance. “Or do you need to inspect the rest of the merchandise?”

The sheer, uncounterfeit hostility in her face snaps something inside my chest.

I step forward, my frame closing the distance before she can take a backward step. I reach out, my hand wrapping firmly around her waist, and lift her off her feet.

Gia gasps, her hands instinctively coming up to slam against my chest, her fingers clutching the dark lapels of my suit jacket.

I drop her onto the center of the black silk mattress.

Before she can scramble backward, I crawl over her, my knees pinning her hips between mine, my hands coming down on either side of her head. My heavy, dark suit looms over her silk-clad body like a nightmare.

I know who she is. I know what these hands can do. She is a trauma surgeon who knows four separate ways to sever a man’s nerve cluster with two fingers.

She could drive an elbow into my solar plexus or aim a knee at my groin, but as I pin her down, I see the deliberate, tactical calculation in her eyes. Fighting physically is what an enemy expects. Gia isn’t choosing a brawl she might lose: she’s choosing psychological warfare, a battle she intends to win without leaving a bruise.