203 The Epilogue

My skin tingled with heat under the prickle of sunlight, drawing a happy sigh from the depths of my chest. Beside me an identical sigh of contentment echoed and yet another one beside that one.

"Clink clink, bitch."

I lowered my sunglasses to glare at Salvador, who was bumping his glass with his older sister's. "Language!"

"Sorry, mama." The little boy smiled sheepishly at me, but he wasn't the least bit embarrassed. Cressida snickered, adjusting her own shades over her small nose and relaxing on the pizza slice pool floatie her body was strewn out across. The virgin sangria she was nursing was almost gone.

I relaxed back onto the warm, inflated plastic, letting the sun bake my skin back into it's natural tan colour. Being holed up in Russia for the entire winter months meant I'd been as pale as the Russians themselves and I was more than happy to be basking in the French summer heat with my kids.