he was girls' first choice

[englishhobby]

Does the following sentence sound natural? (I have made it up myself.) I need to use the expressions 'somebody's first choice' and 'a man with a fortune'. With that in mind, could you help me improve this sentence?

Richard was a young man with a fortune. Intelligent and easy-going at that, he was girls' first choice.

 

[emsr2d2]

"at that" doesn't work there. I'm not quite sure what you meant by it. Also, simply using "girls'" sounds unnatural, not least because you called him a young man, not a boy. Perhaps "... he was the first choice for many young women".

 

[englishhobby]

"at that" doesn't work there. I'm not quite sure what you meant by it. Also, simply using "girls'" sounds unnatural, not least because you called him a young man, not a boy. Perhaps "... he was the first choice for many young women".

Sorry, I didn't have time to delete 'at that' (I had put it in a different way previously).

 

[Tarheel]

Perhaps:

Richard was a man with a fortune, and he was Emily's first choice. But she had competition.