They arrived at the Plantation, while Benjamin Duncan was immediately occupied with his business watching the crops, while Irina trailing behind him.
"Irina, you can wait at the factory. There is a place that is comfortable and not that hot." Benjamin Duncan said, but Irina refused and kept her company even until dusk. They are still on the plantation. When the women who picked the crops had returned home and the plantation area was deserted. Benjamin and Irina are decided to go back to the the factory.
"We'd better go home now, or we'll be home too late," Benjamin said while getting ready but Irina got up instead and walked towards him. She poured wine into a glass and handed it to Benjamin, while Benjamin looked confused by what Irina was doing.
"My husband isn't home," Irina said.
"That's why you shouldn't be away for too long," Benjamin replied.
Irina pursed her lips briefly, "During the three years we were married, many things made me wonder." Irina suddenly turned the conversation into something more serious. Benjamin Duncan was forced to postpone his plans to leave the room.
"You are close friends with my husband. Besides that, you guys have been working together all this time." Irina looked at Benjamin Duncan with a deep gaze. "Did he meet another woman behind me?" Irina asked and Benjamin Duncan fell silent for a moment.
"Reply me." Said Irina with wide eyes.
Benjamin took a sip of the wine in the glass in his hand, "All men do it once in a while." The lie.
Irina looked teary "I've been living in hell for the past three years." He said softly, inviting sympathy from Benjamin, who still had a crush on Irina.
"Why do you say that?" Benjamin Duncan's brows furrowed.
"Gertrude never saw me as an attractive wife anymore. He never touched me passionately. In fact, he often came home very late at night for various reasons and went straight to bed. When I asked him to make love, he even turned me down."
"Last time you told me you loved Gertrude, and what I know is Gertrude very in love with you." Benjamin looked at Irina.
"I did say it, but now I consider to think about it. During our three years of marriage, everything goes in the wrong ways and it was so difficult for me," said Irina. "Your late grandmother is no longer around to protect me. As for your aunt, she is very domineering, she rules her son and continues to intimidate him with her position as hostess." Irina's tears fell. But it seemed she was doing it on purpose to get Benjamin Duncan's sympathy.
"Sometimes I want to run away from it all." Irina sobed.
Benjamin who always melts when he sees women's tears can't hold himself back, he puts the glass in his hand on the table and embraces Irina in his arms.
"I'll talk to Gertrude," Benjamin said, trying to come up with a solution for Irina.
"No, don't say anything to him. I don't want him to turn against his mother, after all that woman is his mother."
Benjamin rubbed Irina's back. While the woman seemed to review a smile in Benjamin Duncan's arms.
Irina pretended to be awake and pulled herself away, "Sorry, I got carried away." She pretended to regretted it, although she was very happy in her heart to be able to feel the warm embrace of Benjamin Duncan, her first love, again.
"You've changed. I saw you've grown over the past three years," said Benjamin. "You're not the same sixteen-year-old girl when I first saw you, who is so fragile." he said.
Irina smiled as she wiped the corners of her eyes, "Life forced me to grow, even it was so hard." The answer.
"Gertrude is a nice guy, you'll be happy to live with him," said Benjamin Duncan. "My aunt may seem too strict sometimes, but she is a good woman. Her life when she was young was also very hard, which made her too dominant at times." Benjamin tries to defend Dominique. After all, Dominique was his aunt, and Benjamin had treated Dominique like his own mother.
Irina looked down, "I shouldn't have told you everything about Gertrude and her mother. Especially to you, because you are their family." She looked regret.
Benjamin Duncan seems to have misjudged Irina, he thought Irina was a weak woman, innocent and too soft to the point of needing his defense and empathy. While actually, Irina herself was tired of her marriage, tired of her mother-in-law's attitude. She even felt that her decision to leave Benjamin Duncan, the man she felt had no future because when he returned from military duty, Benjamin Duncan no longer had any possessions. His father died bankrupt, leaving behind a lot of debt with no valuable assets at all other than a house that was not maintained.
But who would have thought, in three years Benjamin Duncan could build it all up and become a man who lived well and had a pretty brilliant business. Meanwhile, her husband Gertrude, the spoiled child who can't make many decisions in his life because he is always shadowed by his mother, is actually getting worse and not growing.
Gertrude has no definite business other than being an extension of Dominique, his mother in the family company left by his father. He worked with Benjamin only as a small investor.
Irina who was originally able to fulfill all her luxurious needs is now forced to make some savings after getting a scathing comment from her mother-in-law, "You should know the financial position of the company and your husband, don't be too ignorant by spending extravagantly." Dominique's words made Irina who initially felt that her life was fine despite being in a loveless marriage, but in fact, without money, she did not find the meaning of her life.
Irina smiled, "We'd better go home." She said ending the conversation between the two of them. For Irina, one hug from Benjamin Duncan was enough to convince her that he still had feelings for her.