A Forbidden Love

Chapter 1

My life wasn’t perfect, but I was happy. I was with a man who had my heart. We had been together for years. The beginning of our relationship had its ups and major downs. We made it through. I was the overly mature one, Jay was quite childish at times. I am the problem solver, and he is the s**t starter.

For years, our lives have been good. Things got really hard with each crap financial decision after another. It placed a stress on me that made it harder and harder to pull us out of. It did cause some resentment, anger, and frustration within myself. I kept pushing through because I loved him so much.

Little did I know, my life was about to change in huge ways.

It started with getting offered my dream job. Manager at a corporate office. I was elated at the opportunity to prove what I am capable of. My career is growing, and it was everything we needed. I had spent the last 6 years building my knowledge in 3rd party property management and was finally going to put it to the test.

My first day was a bit of a s**t show. It was obvious the operations of the office were in disarray. I had no idea what staff we had, because the previous manager had surely done a horrific job. No schedules were posted; the staff did as they pleased. My presence that day was unexpected, so I should have known I was going to find some interesting things. I was so not prepared.

The first thing I found was a staff member and one of the children of the former manager in the heat of s*x in the supply closet. I just calmly told them to get out and not come back.

My vision was to take this office and make it a well-oiled machine. It would be running flawlessly in 6 months. I called in some reinforcements from an old friend of mine. He was an old army guy that I had worked extensively with. I knew he would be able to help me get things going in the right direction.

The first few weeks were full of hiring staff and getting things back into operating condition. Frankly, I don’t know how the hell this company operates at all.

It was a corporate office, but it was like an off-site branch. The higher up managers were in the main corporate office in Kansas.

They had given me warning as to the disarray, but I don’t even think they knew the severity of the situation.

I would have to say the first few months were rough, but we were getting there. Countless hours were being put in. Me being me, I am too stubborn to know when to quit. I looked at the red flags that were flashing me in the face.

Bills that weren’t getting paid. The utility companies came out several times threatening to turn them off. Along with many other companies that were coming to collect.

My main team was quite the variety. Angelica was a bit of a ditz, but she was a hard worker and I could count on her for a lot. Taylor was also a ditz, but once again, she worked her ass off. Olive was a recovering addict that I felt bad for. She worked hard to a point, but she also came with a lot of drama. Nikki, who I worked with at another company. She was knowledgeable and tried to help me get things back on the road. Bret, who was the old army guy I worked with. Brody, who was another guy on the property. He was kind of a do-all guy. Then there was my cousin who was a troubled kid, barely 18. I felt for him and I wanted to keep him out of trouble. So I hired him. Talon may have been family, but he was also a huge pain in my ass. Then there was Kamila. God knows why in the hell I hired her. She did her job, but there were more times than not that I wanted to beat her ass.

Then there was Azura. She was a hard one. Hands down, she was the hardest worker, but she was also hard to read. I couldn’t get a good fix on her. There was something about her that I was drawn to. For the longest time, we couldn’t get along. I tried so hard to figure her out.

I went about my business like usual. Trying to get things back on track. It seemed as though every time we took 10 steps forward, we took another 100 back. It was frustrating, and I was losing. I couldn’t find it in my heart to accept that things weren't changing for the better.

No help was coming from the higher ups and it was making my life a living hell. I felt myself slipping into a depression. Things at home with my husband were getting bad again. I was working 18–20-hour days and he was sitting at home unemployed after his last job closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy. He didn’t cook or clean. He just slept, drank, and laid about. I closed myself off because otherwise I felt like I would lose myself.

I kept myself going by telling myself things would get better once I got the office back to where it should be. At that point, I was all work and no play. Like ever.

The connection I felt to Azura was weird and foreign. I couldn’t figure out what my problem was. Each day that she was off, I was sad. Those days just sucked. The days she was there brought me excitement. I like getting to see her. Couldn’t figure out what my problem was.

The day things changed was no different than any other. I had worked an insane number of hours, and I was at the office going about my daily subscription of insanity. I got a call from Taylor that she needed to report she had seen Azura drinking from her water bottle. However, after she did further investigate, she found that it was NOT water, but vodka. I felt horrible at hearing this information. Azura was 4 years younger than me. She was too young to resort to that level of alcohol consumption.

I thanked Taylor and got off the phone. My thoughts were chaotic as I tried to decide how I was going to proceed forward. Maybe sleeping on it would help, but the universe had other plans.

As I was sitting in my office trying to figure out why in the hell the bills weren’t being paid… once again, in she walked. I heard Angelica start talking to her. For a moment, I considered being a coward and waiting to talk to her, but something told me this conversation needed to happen sooner rather than later.

I walked out of my office with as much courage I could muster. “Hey Azura, can I speak with you a moment?”

She looked at me with confusion written all over her face. “Uh, sure?”

I motioned for her to follow me. I felt this conversation was best placed in a comfortable environment. I decided a walk around the building in the sun would do us some good.

We started the walkout in an awkward silence. I was hoping she would start the conversation, but once again, I had to grow a pair and get on with the unpleasantries.

“Azura, I am very concerned about you,” I said. My anxiety was really starting to kick in. I looked over at her to see if she was going to speak. There was no sign saying she was going to talk.

“It has come to my attention that you have been drinking on the job. As you are aware, this is an immediately terminable offense.” I looked over at her again. I was trying to get a read on her, but her face gave away nothing. “I am not going to be terminating you, but you are walking on thin ice here. I need you to tell me what is going on. You’re so young, and you have a full life ahead of you. Why would you throw that away?” Again, silence. “You just finished your clinicals. You have so much more going for you than this nonsense. I really need you to talk to me so I can help. You work hard, and I don’t want to see you throw your life away. If you aren’t happy here, I understand. I know I am your boss, but I am different. I care about my staff. You guys mean a lot to me.”

Looking at her, something I said had caught her attention. She was looking at me quizzically. “Why do you care?”

That question caught me off guard. “Why wouldn’t I care?”

“You’re just our boss. It shouldn’t matter to you what I have going on. What should matter is that I broke the rules. So you should just fire me.”

I was completely floored by what she was saying. This is not what I was expecting. “Azura, I care a lot about you guys. You are all helping me hold things together in all this craziness. Like I said, I care more than most managers. I can see there is something bothering you, and I can’t help if I don’t know.”

I allowed the comfortable silence to surround us. Every so often, I would look back up at her. The wheels in her head were turning. There was a war raging in her mind.

“I am just dealing with a lot right now.” Was all she said. At least it was something more than what we started with. Slow progress.

“Azura, you can talk to me day or night about anything. I am here for you. I care about you more than I probably should.” That omission even shocked me. What the hell was that? I could see my comment even confused her.

“Um, thanks.” There was the awkward silence again.

We walked a while longer before she said she had to leave.

The following days were quiet. It was nearly my birthday and I was quite excited. I will be 26 this year. Another year closer to 30. My dad was actually going to be in town this year. It had easily been 10 years since I spent a birthday with him. We were having a big ol' shin dig at his house this evening and I couldn’t wait.

The day went by relatively quickly. It was also a productive day, so I was feeling elated about the day. I let the staff know I was headed out and would be available by phone. As if I needed to tell them that. They constantly called me anyway.

The party went off without a hitch. I got to spend time with my family. I felt a twinge of sadness in all of the festivities. My husband was home once again. The relationship between him and my family was always tense. He didn’t know how to keep things kosher in front of my family. For some reason, he always showed his ass in front of them. Over the years, I grew to accept that he wouldn’t attend family events with my family. I saw both sides of it. All he ever showed them was the ass asshole, but on the same token, they never gave him a real chance. It was tense between the two. And I got to be stuck in the middle. My family was a bunch of optionated pricks. My husband was one as well, but they were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Jay was highly involved in politics. My family was a bunch of self-righteous religious folk.

As I was getting ready to leave, I got a phone call from Angelica. She was screaming and crying. It took me a moment to calm her down so I could figure out what was happening.

“Azura…she has been in an accident!” She hiccupped breaths as she tried to calm down.

She had my whole undivided attention. “Angelica, I need you to tell me exactly what happened.”