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This story is absolutely true. The PUMAs were talking about this back in October 2008. Here's a recap from a 2008 NoQuarterUSA article.

Is Vera Baker Surfacing as a Potential Story in the Presidential Race?

Well, this is curious. Sharon Churcher, a reporter with the Daily Mail, published this piece last night without naming a name other than Barack Obama:

Barack Obama is the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee.
The whispers focus on a young woman who in 2004 was hired to work on his team for his bid to become a senator.
The woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her.
The allegations were initially circulated in August, just two weeks before the convention at which Obama finally beat his opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, Hillary Clinton. ...
According to our investigation into the rumours, they originated with political veterans who claim to be loyal Democrats.
They have tried to persuade reporters that they have the woman’s interests at heart.
One of the sources who has been circulating the rumours admitted never meeting the woman but claimed he has spoken to ‘a group of African American’ women who are her friends and believe she was mistreated.
Denial: The woman, whose identity we have protected, rejected the claims
‘They said she was removed from her position and the political scene because Michelle got wind of the fact that she had a close friendship with her husband,’ the source said. ‘She disappeared, then she reappeared in the Caribbean.’
The Mail on Sunday located the woman in the Caribbean, where she now works. She denied that Mrs Obama had raised any objections to her job on the 2004 campaign.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing happened. I just left … at the end of the campaign.’
Asked about the claim that Mrs Obama accused her of having a close friendship with the Senator, she said: ‘I have no comment on anything.
‘I switched careers. That’s it. I’m a Democrat and I support Senator Obama ... I don’t have anything to say.’
She added that she emigrated to the Caribbean from the US after falling in love with the man with whom she now lives.
Senator Obama’s team did not respond to our request for comment.
But one day after we contacted Obama’s team, a London law firm informed The Mail on Sunday that it had been retained by the woman to help her to counter the whispering campaign, which they said was ‘absolutely false’.

After you read Churcher’s article take a look at today’s piece by Hill Buzz, which carries the nifty title, Who is Vera Baker and Why is She in Martinique? and seems to have similar story line sans the allegations of any romantic entanglements.

According to Hill Buzz:

FEC Senate campaign records show she was paid a pretty penny as “Finance Director”.
However, people familiar with Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign say Claire Serdiuk was Obama’s Finance Director. Looking through everything we can see online for that 2004 campaign, Claire Serdiuk is consistently listed as the Finance Director – because that’s what she was.
There’s no mention of Vera Baker…but Vera Baker was paid as the “Finance Director” too.
And then, suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to New York.

Looks like Kevin at Hill Buzz is stirring the waters in a clever way, but at least has FEC records to bolster the assertion that Baker served in a finance role of some sort with Barack’s campaign for the Senate. What is curious about the Churcher piece, which appears to be sympathetic to Obama by portraying him as the victim of an impending smear, is the note that a London law firm contacted the mail. They were threatened with a libel suit, so why the hell did they write the piece? If it is not news then why put it out and draw attention to an unnamed woman that is simply going to fuel the search for the woman in question?