“Harry, you’re not getting younger,” I guess, is a normal sentence to hear from your father when you’re 30, but it gets more nagging when you’re the CEO of the multi-billion-pound company that he built and you don’t have an heir.

I had a wild youth: clubs, alcohol, drugs, women, men. I was a frat boy. My relationships were brief—always flings, always one-night stands. I knew my parents didn’t like it, but they loved me enough to drag my half-breathing body to bed when I came home from another bender and not freak out when another half-naked girl was running out of my room in the morning.

But I saw it all in their eyes, and it was the worst—the disappointed look in my mother’s eyes and that head shake my father always gave me. At some point, I started getting interested in my father’s business—actually getting interested. It became a creative outlet for me: creating new lines of clothes, perfumes, wellness products. He encouraged it all, and I guess that’s when I started growing out of my frat phase. But then came another extreme: my personal life was nonexistent because I was putting everything into my work. Especially when my dad stepped down to let me take the position of CEO after a board meeting.

Now my mum was clutching her pearls, telling me how she would never see her grandkid before her death. And it was as if I didn’t see her running in those Versace heels—I guess she’d be taking them to the grave.

But I get it, okay? I understand that I need to settle down. But I wish it was as easy as my parents say. Of course, besides gold diggers and sugar babies, there are smart women from wealthy families who don’t need our money. I’ve met them all—at galas, at board dinners, through family friends. They’re polished, ambitious, brilliant in their own right. On paper, any one of them would’ve been a perfect match.

But none of them made me stop.

None of them made me forget to check my phone, or lose track of time, or want to take a step back from the boardroom just to be with them. They fit into the picture-perfect life my parents imagined for me, but they never made me feel like it was mine.

And maybe that’s the problem. I’ve lived in extremes—reckless youth, relentless work—and somewhere along the way, I forgot how to just… be. How to open myself up enough for someone to actually matter.

So when Dad says, “Harry, you’re not getting younger,” what I hear is, Harry, you’re failing. Failing them. Failing the company by not securing a legacy. Failing myself by not letting anyone in.

But I can’t bring myself to pick a woman just because she looks good on the Christmas card or because her last name adds weight to mine. I’ve seen what that kind of marriage does—boardroom mergers disguised as love, dinners that feel like negotiations, kids raised by nannies while the parents only meet in passing.

I swore I’d never live like that.

Today is Sunday, which means the usual golf with partners—and by that, I mean Dad’s friends. The only difference is that his longtime friend Mr. Campbell’s daughter, who has finally returned from Japan, will be joining us today.

I’m not stupid—I know what this is for. Dad is trying to play matchmaker.

I never met you, and all I knew was that you were 27 and single, studied abroad, and were probably pressured as much as I was to finally marry someone. But maybe you were as picky as me, looking for something real.

But nobody told me that you’re fucking gorgeous.

Nobody told me you’d walk into that golf club in a tennis skirt, navy sweater, and sneakers and steal the breath right out of my lungs.

Witty. Smart. A damn good golf player.

You were sharp without being cruel, playful without trying too hard. You teased me on the first hole, beat me on the third, and by the fifth, I was wondering how the hell someone like you had slipped through my radar all this time.

And for the first time in years, I wasn’t thinking about my parents, or the company, or heirs, or expectations. I was just thinking about you.

“You’re a good sport,” I smile, watching you score another one effortlessly.