Alice and the Hot Banker Heir

First day at work.

“I moved here just yesterday evening.”

“I see, where? If I may ask.”

Alice indicated up the hill behind the church.

“Warwick Road, huh? Well, I guess I will be seeing you around since I live on the same street.”

Alice couldn’t help smiling up at him. Maybe a friendly face wouldn’t hurt now she was in a new town.

Their conversation was rudely interrupted by Richard’s phone ringing. Taking it out of his pocket, he pursed his lips, reading the name of whoever was calling him.

“I need to go…” he said, shaking his head, pressing 'answer' and waving at her.

“Yes, no worries, bye.” Said Alice, backing away and into the lift area, ready to make her way back home.

Getting back to her car, she put her bags into the boot, switched on the radio and drove back up the hill to her place.

She decided to try out her new peach scented shower gel and strawberry shampoo before stepping in the shower and relaxing under the constant stream of water. Given that her appliances were still on the way, the brunette figured she would start testing out the takeout joints in the area by ordering her dinner online and settling down to pick the outfit she was going to wear the next day for her first day at C&P Bank in York. Choosing the smart, dark purple suit and cream blouse, she opened her laptop again.

She knew it was a small bank that had just merged with another small bank, in more ways than one. Through researching for her interview, she had discovered that the Carrington Family were about to be related to the Parker family by marriage, as Edward Carrington was marrying Eliza Parker. The tabloids made it quite clear that the Carrington family did not necessarily approve the match given Eliza’s questionable past and playboy boyfriends, but Alice thought that was a bit unfair as the same tabloids were full of stories about Edward and his various super-model conquests.

That aside, Alice was prepared and researched the difficulties two small banks could face when merging, as well as opportunities that might come through this union, and her eloquence won her a place in this new institution. She found her new boss, Eman, on Linkedin and added him after he picked her for the job and was now brushing up on the official bios of the board members.

She had a good feeling about this, had rejected other posts with more lucrative salaries, but her guts told her that this was to be her home for years to come and they never led her wrong. Binging on a new series about a female detective in the Victorian era, Alice decided to have an early night so as to wake up sharp the next morning.

Sure enough, Tuesday dawned, the phone alarm rang and was promptly dismissed. Brushing her teeth and washing her face, the brand-new banker picked up her hot brush and gave her straight brown locks a slight curl. She put on the suit she had picked the day before and drove to York to start her new career.

Alice found her parking spot pretty easily and took the lift up to the reception area. She had been there once before for her interview but she couldn’t help admiring the newly refurbished modern look, part of the rebranding after the merger, probably. Taking a deep breath and heading towards the desk, a girl with a friendly smile greeted her, the nametag read ‘Lindsey’.

“Good morning, Miss. How may I help you?” The receptionist could not have been a year or two older than Alice and that made her feel somewhat at ease. That there were more of her age bracket working at this institution.

“Hello Lindsey, my name is Alice Beacham and it’s my first day of work here.”

“Ah yes, welcome on board! Rosalie told me about your arrival. Let me beep her to notify her that you’re here. I trust you’re settling well in Rubyshire – is there anything I could help you with?”

“Not that I can think of at the moment, but thank you so much for offering.” Alice replied, smiling. It looked like she found her first friendly face at work.

Sure enough, Rosalie, the girl from HR, sashayed her way across the lobby towards her. She had her dark hair in a neat bun, contrasting to her alabaster skin and fire-red lips. She could have just as easily been a front cover model. Alice remembered how encouraging Rosalie was during her interview, nodding to her replies, putting her at ease and guiding her through the mountain of paperwork that went into joining the bank. The willowy girl, guided Alice into a board room to get her original signature on the contract and various other forms before giving her a tag and a code for access and sending for Eman.

“That’s the papers done. Would you like anything to drink?”

“A glass of cold water would be great, thank you.”

“Coming right up!” grinned Rosalie, stacking the papers before getting out of the board room which was mostly glass except for two walls, upon which two large screens hung in between modern monochrome paintings, complementing the black furniture with gold accents. It all looked so expensive…and this was her new professional home.

Alice felt blessed and happy and was probably grinning like an i***t before Eman showed up with Rosalie, who gave her the glass of cold water before Eman guided her to the compliance floor and introduced her to Dayna, an Australian girl who was to be her colleague in Eman’s growing team before taking her around to meet various other teams – she even got to meet Edward Carrington!

She could see why he had all those girlfriends, he was handsome. He could charm anyone and welcomed her warmly, saying since taking on the reign of the bank, he was trying not only to grow but also to modernise the team and she was part of that. He wished her luck and here she was, given her first task to review some policies in order to get them up to scratch with the new framework as well as current regulations.

Dayna was proving to be a wonderful companion, only a year younger than Alice’s 29 years, she could gossip till the end of time, was funny and showed the newcomer all around the systems and various filing places. Her flaming red curls coming down to her rear, meant that she could be located almost anywhere and Alice couldn’t help but laugh when she noticed she had a Merida desktop on her work laptop.

They were in the middle of gaining access to one of the longest but most important policy documents pertaining to investment when one of the guys from tech came to set up the newbie’s new unit and register her on the network. The redhead suggested that since it was five to noon, they might as well head to the cafeteria upstairs for lunch.

“You’ll love it!” she said, pushing the ‘P’ button.