James Webley was a clothing retailer and a new client for Underworld. Carla Connor made an appointment to meet him at Nick's Bistro for a business meeting however, still taking the blame for the fire at Victoria Court (though, in truth, Tracy Barlow had accidentally started the conflagration) she backed out and made trainee manager Alya Nazir attend instead. That was a mistake: Alya had only an hour to read the brief and she was in deep mourning as her own father, Kal, had died in the fire.
The meeting almost ended as soon as it began as James had been looking at the lines on the website and said that it wasn't cutting-edge enough for his company, being too reminiscent of the 1990s and too suburban. He was interested when Alya told him about their bespoke basques but upset her when he made a remark that any man would be turned on by such an item. She took this as a come-on to her and reacted badly. When a nearby Jason Grimshaw stepped in to assist Alya and told James to leave, he did so, telling Alya that she was unprofessional.