It had all seemed so easy back then. But it wasn't.
Elise glanced over the crowded room, amazed to see her past staring back at her. Or to be more accurate, he wasn't staring at all - he had not yet noticed her across the crowded bar area to the upscale restaurant in a foreign city. He looked exactly the same, but somehow better than he had before. She let her eyes linger over the fine grey hairs that had invaded his deep brown hair, the gentle lines framing his eyes, the determined furrow to his brow - that, at least, was the same, if more pronounced.
When he had met her, he had been a young buck, sowing his oats, demanding everything from a world that has owed him nothing, but gave generously with both hands. He was intelligent, a matter of hard work and determination and the privilege he had been born to. He was devastatingly handsome, a gift of genetics and grooming and pure luck. He was charming to a fault. He was often overlooked as being a "pretty boy", but in honesty, he was more than a good looking man, he had a spirit of adventure, of daring interspersed with an innate compassion and perspective on his own good fortune. He had the world by the tail, but instead of becoming entitled or conceited, he had understood that not everyone had the same advantages he had. It was a devastating combination.
She took in his bespoke suit. Always dressed for success, he had been raised at the knee of the most fashionable of women and the most successful of men. He knew that appearances mattered. His navy suit was both current and timeless, and he wore it well. He always was a study in contradiction, a contrast even to himself.
Elise had a circuitous route that had placed her in his sphere of influence. She had been born to similar, or perhaps even greater privilege. But it had been spurned by her parents, who had chosen each other over the expectations of their social class. They had walked away and been disowned for their efforts. So Elise had been spared the vagaries of that life. Perhaps it was her ability to straddle two worlds that had appealed to him in the first place. When they had met, he was caught between the duty that he knew was expected, if not demanded of him and his wish to make his own mark, to have grand adventures and be young and irresponsible while he could still afford great failures. She had represented something to him, a willingness to walk away from the demands of being a certain type of person.
But in the end, it had been the same straddling of two worlds that had broken them apart. He had wanted her to enter into his life, be his bride and give up on her own goals and desires. She had wanted him to join her in her more bohemian adventures. And the inability to find a way to bridge the gap without breaking each others hearts, as well as breaking their own in the process had proved to be too much. So they had parted ways, both still in love with a version of the other that may never have existed.
Elise broke out of her reverie to focus on his face once again. She gasped as his eyes met hers, his gaze electrifying her from across the room. He held her eyes for several minutes before squaring his shoulders. She immediately knew his intention. He made his excuses to the men surrounding him and began to walk in her direction, swirling his scotch in his glass before draining it and placing it down on a vacant table. He avoided being drawn into other conversations as he made his way across the room. Elise took a large sip of her red wine, steeling herself for the coming moments.
He continued in his path, finally looking at her with a readable expression, gestured subtly towards the exit with his chin and she nodded almost imperceptibly. She took a final draw from her glass and made her excuses to her friends before gathering her things and heading to the exit, trying to appear nonchalant in her departure. She had a fleeting thought that she must be making a fool of herself, her friends must think she was mad, racing out of the bar before they had even been seated for their meal. But her stomach fluttered with the anxious butterflies that had always overtaken her in his presence, and she knew that she could no more resist the magnetic draw to him today than she could at any other point in their complicated history.