Crazy For You by Sandra Edwards Page B

Candy said into the phone.
    “Tell her she can call me at Rich’s,” he said.
    “I’ll let her know,” Candy hung up the phone. “That
went well.” She rolled her eyes.
    “Why is he doing this?” Roxanne asked, as if she
didn’t get his motive.
    “Because he wants to talk to you,” Candy said, a bit
annoyed. She paused for a moment to push her subjective feelings
aside, but couldn’t resist offering her two cents. “And you really
should talk this thing out with him.”
    “Why?” Clearly, Roxanne didn’t see the sense in
prolonging this mess any longer. “I don’t want to talk to him,” she
said. “It’s over.”
    During the next few days, Frank burned up the phone
lines calling eight or ten times a day. Yet, he could never get
Roxanne on the phone. She refused to talk to him, and he was just
about fed up. Did she really think he would to let it go so easily?
It wasn’t over until he said it was over. And it definitely
wasn’t over, not by a long shot. She might as well get ready to
face him because he intended to see her whether she wanted to or
not.
    Frank laid on the condo’s doorbell. Come on . Somebody open the door . He knew she was in there, and he
intended to sit on the bell until somebody let him in.
    The door opened, and an uneasy look washed over
Candy’s face when saw him. “Frank…I don’t think she wants to talk
to you right now.”
    Frank shoved past Candy. “I don’t give a damn if she
wants to talk to me or not. But I’ve got a few things to say to
her, and she’s going to listen.”
    “Frank...” Candy grabbed at him, missing, as he
headed up the stairs.
    He stopped long enough to glare at her. The fire in
his eyes issued an unmistakable warning, and he said, “Stay out of
it, Candy.”
    Roxanne, still in her robe, was methodically
applying makeup to her emotionally-drawn face. If she heard Frank
storming into the dressing room, she didn’t let it show.
    “We have to talk,” he said in an almost peaceful
voice.
    Roxanne dusted her face with loose powder. “I can’t
see that there’s anything left to talk about.” Her eyes never left
her reflection in the mirror.
    “Put your makeup down and look at me,” he said in
that same cool tone. “You’re not going back there.” He waited for
her to comply. When she didn’t, he snatched the makeup from her and
threw it against the wall. “I told you to look at me,” he said in a
choked voice. “Look at me, damn it.”
    His actions didn’t affect Roxanne one way or
another. She merely reached for her flauntingly sexy dress, dropped
her robe and eyed him with a vacant stare before slipping the
garment over her head and down her body. “Look...” She tried, but
failed to reach the zipper on the back of her dress. “I really
don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve gotta go, or I’ll be late.”
Her cold glare left him as she turned away.
    She wasn’t listening. Frank had to do something to
get her attention. He couldn’t let her go back there. The thought
of other men touching her drove him crazy. Rage made him grab her
wrists harder than he meant to. “Take that dress off!”
    “Let me go.” She stood her ground with a festering
detachment.
    “I’ve already told you—you’re not going back
there!”
    Sensing Frank was out of control, Roxanne tried to
pull away. But her efforts to free herself were fruitless. He
clenched her dress in tight-gripped fists, and Roxanne’s soul
deserted her body, fleeing to the other side of the room.
    She couldn’t do anything except stand by horrified
as he ripped the dress from her body.
    The next thing she knew, she was crouching on the
floor by the bed. Naked. Weeping and shaking wildly, she tried to
cover her body, her head, and her face with her arms—all at the
same time.
    Seeing her like that, so helpless, Frank caved. He
knelt beside her and gathered her frigid body in his arms. He
dragged the comforter off the bed and wrapped it around her.
Holding her close,