 Maria Del Conte, a twenty six year old attractive and intelligent banker has made a decision to take her life on her 27th birthday. Having had an unhappy and troubled childhood, brought up in Italy by her hard disciplined and selfish Italian mother and English father, she moved to London and carved out a successful career as an investment banker for Swiss Bank. She specialised in European media investment, where she has acquired a strong portfolio of wealthy venture capitalists looking to invest in film, music or any other kind of show business activity. It is through one of her clients, the fabulously rich and geeky 22 year old Bruce Day, the son of an extremely wealthy industrialist, that she is introduced to Michael Scott a small time film producer who, for reasons unbeknown to Maria, has persuaded Bruce to invest $1m into a movie starring the porn star Richard (Dick) Aardon and directed by the infamously tough female director Jo Simon. Filling every minute of her day in order to avoid thinking about her past and aided by handfuls of prescription medication which over the years she has become immune to, Maria finds a renewed interest in life by her association with Michael, a charismatic and worldly man in his late twenties, slightly jaded by a life full of experience and disappointment. He asks her out for coffee. After many refusals she finally agrees to meet. Maria doesn t drink coffee she orders herbal tea. They start to meet on a regular basis, usually in coffee shops, behind a backdrop of guerrilla film making, feeding the ego of a young entrepreneur and his Russian  trophy  girlfriend, dealing with beef-cake actors and temperamental directors and the cool and stylish lifestyle of a modern day, multi-cultural London under attack from terrorism. We discover the truth behind Maria s  birthday  decision, the reason for Michael s cynicism, Maria s new passion for strong cappuccino and observe an unusual sexual and intimate chemistry develop between the two of them more is never enough. Michael puts the question to Maria. MICHAEL Tell me three things that you associate with COFFEE? MARIA Addictive, stimulating YOU, why? MICHAEL How you feel about coffee is how you feel about SEX.