API to download file from another laravel project

I have 2 laravel projects on different server.

I'm building an API on Project1 to download pdf file and feed to Project2.

So users on Project2 will be able to download files from Project1 via API calls from application.

// Project1 (API)
public function downloadPDF($id)
    {
        $model = Record::find($id);
        $filename = $model->file_number . '.pdf';
        $pdf = storage_path('files/' . $filename);
        return response()->download($pdf);
    }

// Project2
public function preview($path)
    {
        $client = new \GuzzleHttp\Client;
        $response = $client->request('GET', 'api/record/download/' . $path);
        dd($response->getBody());
    }

The response status is 200 (ok). However, when I attempt to read the getBody() or getBody()->getContents(), it returns empty string.