Page 99 of Julian

Julian smiled at that. “I’m sure he’ll be one of the most photographed babies, too.”

Kiara had thought about doing a maternity shoot because she’d seen so many of them on social media. However, those had all involved the father, and she was pretty sure that Julian wouldn’t want to participate in something like that.

She had been taking pictures and videos of herself each week, just to have. This might be the only pregnancy she ever experienced, and she wanted a record of it.

“Since you don’t plan to stay for sightseeing, are you going back this afternoon with Cole and Annie?”

“I wasn’t sure when they were going back,” she said. “But I figured I’d either go with them or just book a ticket.”

“No need to fly commercial if you want to leave this afternoon.”

“Do you know what time they’re leaving?” Kiara asked.

“I don’t know their actual departure time. Let me see what Annie says.” He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick message. “Last night she said they were flying out in the afternoon, but I don’t know if it was early or late afternoon.”

Kiara felt a sudden longing to go home. She looked out of the window at the view. She’d always been a small-town or country girl. The big city didn’t appeal to her, and after the experiences she’d had there in the past twenty-four hours, she was ready to leave it behind.

“Annie said the plane is scheduled to depart at one, so they plan to leave here at noon.”

“And they’re okay if I go with them?”

“Definitely,” Julian said with a nod as he tapped out a response. “Just make sure you and Lucy are ready to go by noon.”

“We will be.”

“I’ll probably be back at the estate next weekend or the week after, depending on how the meetings go this week.”

“Are you going back to Singapore soon?”

“I’m not sure yet. Since Sean and Ava came here for the meetings, I don’t need to travel to them. Which is probably just as well because Duncan has some other trips scheduled for me.”

Kiara wondered if he’d always traveled that much. It seemed like he was on the go an awful lot. It had made sharing a house with him pretty easy, since their time together had been fairly limited so far, and it sounded like maybe it was going to continue that way.

“I’m going to be leaving the hotel today too,” Julian said. “I’ll be going to my apartment now that the event here is over.”

Kiara wondered what his apartment was like, but he hadn’t offered to show it to her. And she wasn’t about to ask to see it.

Unfortunately, it was becoming very clear to her that even though sheknewthere was an end date to her marriage to Julian, she still wanted to know more about him.

She wanted to have a place in his life, the way he had a place in hers. The communication they’d had while he was in the treatment center had given her hope that they were moving toward a closer relationship, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

It seemed that no matter how much they shared with each other, there was still a wall between them. Julian was definitely keeping his distance from her in a lot of ways. She’d thoughthis moving into Angie’s part of the house would bring them together, but that hadn’t really been the result.

In the evenings, which was when they’d spent time together, Julian usually pulled out his laptop and continued to work, after having worked all day. She would end up reading, which wasn’t bad, but it didn’t foster much communication between them.

She wasn’t sure that they would even have a close friendship once everything was done. They would be two acquaintances parenting their child.

It felt like a rejection of who she was, even though he hadn’t really rejected her. It just felt like she wasn’t worthy of having a place in his life.

“I should probably let you and Lucy get your stuff together if you’re going to be able to leave at noon,” Jude said, looking at the expensive watch on his wrist. Kiara noticed that the ring she’d placed on his finger was still there, so that was something.

Kiara glanced at the screen on her phone and saw that it was almost eleven, so they wouldn’t have much time. When Julian got to his feet, she did as well, turning toward the door at the sound of a knock.

“That’ll be Lucy,” Julian said, then went to let her and Anthony in.

“We’re catching a ride back to Serenity with Cole and Annie,” Kiara said to Lucy. “We need to be ready to leave by noon.”

Lucy glanced at her watch, then nodded. “That’s doable for me. Does that work for you?”