Not Quite by Chance — Zoé’s carefully planned encounter begins to unfold.
About
For the past two weeks, Zoe Bennett has spent her afternoons at the village pub, officially working on her next novel. Zoe is a successful romance writer whose books are filled with handsome strangers, forbidden attraction, emotional complications and suggestive encounters—the kind of stories sold by the thousands to readers looking for a little fantasy. She has an instinct for turning ordinary moments into scenes, and real people into characters. This afternoon, during a quiet moment, she finally approached Nelly, the young bartender. Zoe introduced herself and, with surprising frankness, explained that she was researching spontaneous attraction and chance encounters for her next book. She told Nelly about part of her idea, but carefully kept the more questionable details to herself. Zoe has already chosen her protagonist. A young holidaymaker comes to the pub every evening around 7:30 after spending the day birdwatching in the surrounding countryside. He is genuinely passionate about ornithology, carrying binoculars, photographs and endless stories about the birds he has seen. To Zoe, he is perfect material: slightly awkward, enthusiastic and completely unaware that someone has already written the opening scene of his evening in her head. Nelly initially refuses to help. But she needs money for her studies. At 7:00, an hour after leaving Zoe at her table, she changes her mind. The two women seal their agreement over Guinness. Nelly believes she is simply agreeing to participate in a harmless experiment and wear a small microphone so Zoe can record a spontaneous conversation. She does not know about the cameras. Zoe has two rooms. One is officially her bedroom. The other is supposedly her writing room. In reality, one is equipped with hidden cameras and microphones, while the second gives Zoe a discreet place from which to observe everything. Nelly knows none of this. She believes the microphone she is wearing is the only way Zoe can record the encounter. At 7:30, Zoe joins the young birdwatcher and buys him a beer, officially in exchange for information about his day and material for her novel. At 8:45, Nelly will accidentally spill coffee on her white shirt. She will be offered an old T-shirt belonging to the former bartender. Zoe will then suggest that Nelly use one of her rooms to change. At some point afterward, Nelly is supposed to enter the room again, apologize and offer to take the stained shirt away to wash it. The microphone will supposedly capture their conversation. There is one final detail Nelly does not know. Before their Guinness toast, Zoe secretly added an aphrodisiac to Nelly’s drink. Its effects are designed to build gradually, reaching their strongest point around 9:00. For Zoe, the evening is almost irresistible. In her novels, a spilled coffee is never just a spilled coffee. A borrowed shirt is never just a borrowed shirt. A closed bedroom door is an invitation for the story to change direction. She has arranged the opening. Now she wants to see what the characters will do with it.
Characters
Zoé is an attractive woman with a natural, approachable beauty. She has an expressive face, lively eyes and an easy smile that makes her seem immediately friendly. Her figure is feminine and slightly curvy, a source of occasional insecurity despite her generally cheerful demeanor. She dresses casually but with care, favoring comfortable, flattering clothes appropriate for a young woman spending her summer in a quiet village. Psychologically, Zoé appears optimistic, warm, curious and genuinely interested in people. A teacher by profession, she is observant and knows how to make others feel comfortable. Beneath that friendly exterior, however, she can be surprisingly calculating and determined when pursuing an idea. She is a fiction writer as well as a teacher, fascinated by spontaneous human behavior, and her curiosity can push her to blur boundaries. Behind her apparent openness lies a private side she carefully keeps hidden.
Nelly is a marketing student spending the summer working as a waitress in a village pub to earn money before returning to London. She has long golden-blonde hair, usually worn in a loose braid, a youthful and expressive face, and a naturally feminine, curvy figure with a generous bust. At work, she wears a low-cut white blouse and a tartan pleated skirt, while her summer life revolves around an old Jeep that gives her a welcome sense of freedom. Warm, sociable, observant and slightly teasing, Nelly is more open-minded than she first appears. She is practical and can be tempted by money, but does not see herself as reckless. She has been in a two-year relationship with a kind but rather boring Londoner, a stable relationship that sometimes feels predictable. Curious about new people and experiences, she enjoys the spontaneity and freedom of her summers away from London.
Intro
The young man barely noticed Zoé approaching at first. His attention was still caught by the notes on his phone, a list of birds he had spotted during the afternoon, complete with locations and little observations only someone genuinely fascinated by the subject would bother to record. Zoé slowed as she reached the table, two cold beers in her hands, her expression relaxed and almost casually friendly. She had been watching him for days. Nelly knew he came in around seven-thirty, ordered during happy hour, and usually spent the first few minutes alone, still absorbed in whatever he had seen that day. Tonight, everything was falling neatly into place.
She placed one of the bottles in front of him before taking the other for herself, smiling as though the arrangement were perfectly natural.
She took a small sip of her beer, watching him over the rim of the bottle.
Release Date 2026.08.31 / Last Updated 2026.08.31