What’s a parasite like you doing here? Get out right now, or I’m calling the police.”
In the living room, where the firelight flickered softly, casting dancing shadows on the high, vaulted ceilings, my biological sister, Charlotte Hayes, spat those words at me. Her voice, sharp and venomous, cut through the warm, festive air.
In her hand was a delicate, long-stemmed crystal glass—the luxury brand I had given her as a Christmas present last year. Inside it swirled a deep ruby vintage, a bottle that had been aging for years in my Mountain Lodge’s private cellar, a bottle worth several thousand dollars. Her lips, stained with that expensive liquid, glistened sensually.
My name is Natalie Brooks, and I am thirty-eight years old. I built my real estate business from the ground up, brick by painful brick, and I succeeded. I now live a life free from the gnawing anxieties of financial hardship.
At work, I’ve always prided myself on making calm, realistic decisions, on seeing the world not as I wish it were, but as it is. This lodge, nestled deep in the snow-dusted Colorado mountains, is my sanctuary. It is the one place on Earth I poured not just my money, but my heart and soul into creating.
And today is Christmas Eve, the one day of the year I cherish the most. After finally securing a long-overdue holiday, my plan was blissfully simple: do nothing. I envisioned myself curled up under a plush wool blanket by the fire, sipping hot cocoa, and letting the profound silence of the mountains wash over me.
That was my idea of pure luxury. But as I drove up the winding, private road leading to my lodge, a familiar vehicle caught my eye, a jarring note in the pristine symphony of white. Parked in the guest space was Charlotte’s gleaming white luxury SUV, the very one for which I was still quietly making the monthly payments.
Next to it sat another vehicle, a snow-covered sedan that had to belong to her husband Liam’s parents. An uneasy chill, colder than the biting mountain air, stirred in my chest. I had told no one about this trip.
Sure, I had given Charlotte the code to the emergency key box beside the front door, but that was strictly for true emergencies—a burst pipe, a fire, a medical crisis. Never, in my worst imagination, did I think she would use it to barge in uninvited with her husband’s entire family to throw a party in my home. Slowly, I stepped out of my car, the crunch of my boots on the fresh snow sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet.
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