“Yeah, but it was amicable and we were able to settle out of court. Fact is, she didn’t want nearly as much as she deserved.” He shrugged. “I would have gladly given her more, but my lawyer told me to keep my mouth shut and just pay what she asked for.”
“So you did.” She pursed her lips. “If you want to know the truth, Gunnar, I think that’s part of your problem. For too long you’ve had everyone else doing your thinking for you.”
“Excuse me?” He’d asked her for brutal honesty and he was apparently going to get it.
“You have all of these advisers.” She waved her hands in the air. “All these so-called professionals running your life, tending to Gunnar Williams, the corporation. But they forget you’re a flesh-and-blood man, not an enterprise. And I’m afraid sometimes they give you lousy advice, thinking only about what’s best for your career.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take last year for example. You’d already been away for four months. Anyone could see your relationship with Gianna was already in trouble, yet you let them add a European leg to the tour. Why?”
Maybe because he knew his relationship with Gi was in trouble and he was afraid to face it. So, like a coward, he ran from it. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” She narrowed her eyes, demanding the truth. “Now tell me.”
“I was afraid of losing her. I couldn’t handle it. I figured if I wasn’t here, she couldn’t get mad at me and wouldn’t bail on me.”
Paula snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, how’d that plan work out for you?”
“Look, I know I screwed up, okay?” He hung his head, playing with the zipper on his suitcase. “I was an idiot.”
“Does that mean you’re going to stop letting other people run your life and you’re going to take responsibility for making your own decisions from now on?”
“I’ve already started.”
She smiled. “Tell me.”
“I left the band.” Her eyes widened, but he continued. “And I told my manager and the record label that I’m interested in making a different kind of album. I’m not even sure I want to tour to promote it this time.” He knew that would almost ensure its failure, but he’d come to realize there were more important things than platinum albums and sold-out tours.
“Wow. That is a change.” She patted his hand. “Good for you. It’s about time you started putting the most important things in your life first. Your own health and sanity, not to mention your family. If you’d continued going at that pace, you’d have paid a terrible price, you know.”
“I did pay a terrible price, Paula.” He closed his eyes. “I feel like I missed out on everything when Ramsey and Keegan were growing up. And it’s not like I can get those days back.”
“No, but you’ll have plenty of other days to look forward to. Boyfriends. Proms. College. Weddings. Grandbabies.”
“And I want to be there for every one of those milestones.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “But I missed out on first words and steps and teeth. I missed out on the first day of school, dance recitals, plays. Hell, I even missed Christmas and birthdays a few times. What kind of dad does that?”
“One who wants the best for his kids.”
He shook his head. “No, I was being selfish.”
“No, what I call selfish is a man who walks out on his kids and never looks back, one who doesn’t offer support, emotional or financial, who leaves the mother of his children all alone to fend for herself. You’d never do that. You were always there for those girls. Maybe not physically, but emotionally and financially. They knew that.”
“I wish I’d learned how to become a parent by example. You know, before I became one.”
Paula chuckled. “Honey, they don’t come with a handbook, and even those of us who grow up in two-parent homes usually don’t know what the hell we’re doing when the time comes to raise our own.”
“Really?” That surprised him. He would have thought kids with a “normal” upbringing would have had an advantage in that department.
“You don’t wanna know how many mistakes I made with my boys. My husband died when they were teenagers, as you know, and I was lost. I was grieving him. So were they. And we were all taking our anger out on each other. There were so many fights in our house during those years.”
Gunnar hadn’t known her then, but he would have supported her any way he could if he had. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”
She raised a shoulder. “We all have to go through something, and I think that made us all stronger… and closer.”
He knew how close Paula was to her sons and grandbabies now, even though they lived clear across the country.
“So, tell me more about your plans.” She looked around the opulent bedroom. “What do you plan to do with this place?”
