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.